Guilty, Your Honor
by shipping-goggles
Summary: Modern!AU Captain Swan. "It was a one-time thing," is definitely one of the last things you want to say to your new boss on your first day at work. For lawyer Emma Swan, this case is open-and-shut. The verdict? Completely hopeless.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Wow, okay! So this is, by far, the longest story I've ever written. A huge thank you to the Captain Swan Big Bang on Tumblr, mainly for giving me a reason to push through a completed multi-chapter, and to my beta Ice Cube 1 (icecubelotr44 on Tumblr) for reading through all of this despite the fact that I accidentally ended up doing the 50k Big Bang instead of the 15k Little Bang. Another massive round of gratitude to captainswanandclintasha (both here and on Tumblr) for being such a hero and doing some awesome last-minute art for this story, linked in my Tumblr post!

Also, a small disclaimer that this story was initially inspired by Suits (plus a Tumblr prompt from like two years ago, which I can't find anymore ha), so all of my legal knowledge has either been taken from said fiction or from the internet. Very, very sorry to those who have actual legal experience l o l.

Enjoy!

* * *

 **Guilty, Your Honor**

 _Chapter 1_

Her first day at Storybrooke Law is decidedly not going well.

It would have been enough to have nearly been late this morning, whirling into the firm's lobby in a clatter of heels and a quiet string of curses, with just enough time to fix the scarf carefully covering her neckline before her new managing partner rounded the corner. Of course, it had to be the one who had seemed to hate her during the interview, too – Regina Mills, all pursed red lips and disdainful eyes – and Emma had spent the majority of her orientation lecture wondering just how many strings her glowing recommendation from the firm's other branch pulled in getting her here while desperately trying to pretend she wasn't nodding off every two minutes from lack of sleep.

(It's no one's fault but her own, of course: she should have known better than to start exploring the nightlife twelve hours before starting her new job. Though, to be fair, she'd gladly do it all again, right down to the early morning scramble across the city, but now really isn't the time to be thinking about all the reasons why her brand new apartment had seemed so empty even after she'd unpacked everything she owned, or why Boston is already looking better than Portland ever would.)

Fortunately, Miss Mills is curt and quick and hardly even looks her way. Their tour of the firm's three floors is a whirlwind of information, and Emma knows she's going to be lost and starving around the lunch hour because there's no way she'll be able to find her way from the associates wing to the kitchen without some sort of map. But she also knows better than to even mention that she has no idea where they're heading, now that the tour seems to be over after a pit stop back at the nicest corner office she's ever seen – all glass walls and floor-to-ceiling views of the city skyline, for named partners only, of course – because the woman who owns that office looks like she'd rather be doing anything but training the new associate.

"You may be a fifth-year in our firm, Miss Swan," Miss Mills says, the drawl in her voice implying exactly what she thinks of that, "but that doesn't exempt you from being assigned to a partner, your immediate superior. Associates work directly with their partners and share their caseload, and I receive performance assessments for all associates on a regular basis." They're rounding the corner into another hallway lined with pristine glass, a blur of names etched over _Partner_ of varying tiers on all of the doors, and Emma distinctly exhales a quiet sigh of relief that she seems to be being passed off. She's never been so glad to be babysat in her life if it means escaping this kind of daily thinly-veiled scorn in favor of someone who, hopefully, won't seem like they have it in for her.

They stop abruptly as Miss Mills pushes a glass door open, and it looks like her mouth is moving as though she's saying something. Unfortunately, Emma can't quite seem to hear anything but a low buzz drowning out everything but the sound of her breathing, because the only thing she sees when she turns to follow her into the adjacent office is _blue_.

Bright blue and dark tousled hair. Slightly less tousled than the last time she'd seen it – _hours_ ago, _god_ – but it's unmistakably him. She'd remember that scruffy, impossibly handsome face anywhere.

And, if the frozen expression plastered across it is any indication, he remembers her, too.

 _Fuck_.

"— Miss Swan," she hears Miss Mills say, as if from a long distance away, and she forces herself back to reality in time to see him blink back to attention at exactly the same time. He's standing next to his desk with a stack of folders, hands full of papers as if he's forgotten he's still holding them, and although the bewilderment is still lingering in the faint crease between his eyebrows, she's glad to see his acting experience as a lawyer has at least gotten him to snap his mouth shut. "She's the new associate we'd discussed, transferring in from the Portland branch. You'd mentioned needing help with the Crocodile case, so she'll be here for whatever you need."

Her poor choice of words isn't lost on either of them, and she notes the way his jaw tightens as a flush of heat rushes to her face, her mind suddenly filled with hollow gasping and desperate whispers and _I need you, I need you, please_. He takes just a moment longer than normal to answer, but she seems to be the only one in the room who notices.

"Wonderful, Regina, you have my thanks," he says without taking his eyes off of her, and she knew she'd have trouble forgetting that accent from the moment he'd first offered her a drink. He places the papers on his desk slowly, like he's trying to stall for time, before striding up to her with his hand outstretched and what looks like a strained smile on his face. "Miss Swan. So glad to make your acquaintance."

His palm is warm against hers, and she's very forcefully reminded of smooth, heated skin running over every inch of her bare body.

"It's very nice to meet you, Mr.—?"

"Jones. Killian Jones," he replies carefully. Right. She already knew that, of course.

"Well, I'll just let you two get settled, then," Miss Mills says, and it's then that Emma remembers that handshakes don't usually last much longer than a second or two; she feels like the way they move apart is like a pair of teenagers getting caught. Luckily, though, their managing partner seems to be occupied with her phone and is already halfway out the door before turning back to them. "Jones, I trust you'll get Miss Swan started here on the right foot."

"Of course," he assures her, and with that she pulls the glass door shut behind her without so much as a parting word.

Emma's starting to think she might prefer working for Regina Mills after all.

She spins on her heel, the words hot on her tongue like an accusation: "You never told me you were a lawyer." At the same time, he huffs out a tight, "Bloody hell," hand carded halfway through his hair like he doesn't know it isn't already a mess. At her words, though, he pauses, throws her a look torn between exasperation and amusement.

"Was I supposed to?"

"It might have helped us avoid the situation we're in right now."

"I was under the impression that you preferred not knowing anything about me. And you never told me you were a lawyer either," he points out. She has a snippety response to that halfway out of her mouth – one that, in no uncertain terms, does not involve admitting that both are true – but then she stops, unsettled. A half-formed, terrible thought niggles at the back of her head.

"I shouldn't have had to," she says slowly. "You should have already known who I was."

He frowns. "What are you talking—?" But she doesn't let him finish, appalled by the picture painted by her belated realization – and she doesn't know how it took this long for it to even cross her mind.

"You knew you were getting an associate, didn't you? You had to have gotten my file, with my picture. You knew who I was."

"I didn't," he says, and he has the audacity to look faintly insulted on top of it all. "I just told you, love, I had no idea who you were until just now."

"Really? You talked with Regina about me, and my name never once came up?"

"She just told me we were getting a new associate; she never told me who it was."

"And it never occurred to you to check up on the person you'd be working with for the foreseeable future?"

That has him stopping in his tracks. "Wait, are you honestly suggesting I'm to blame for all of this?"

"I don't know," she says in a way that makes it clear that she does. "What are the chances that the man who takes me home from the bar ends up, by pure luck, being the guy I have to work for?"

She knows her accusations have hit a nerve when she glimpses the flash of temper in his eye. "I'm not a bloody idiot, love," he tells her flatly. "I had no idea that the blonde who seduced me last night also happened to be starting work here the next day."

"Don't try to pin this on me," she snaps. "And you were out drinking on a weeknight, too, so don't try to take the high road, either."

"I was celebrating a case," he says, eyes narrowing.

"You were celebrating a case, in a quiet bar, by yourself?"

"As opposed to hanging out in a quiet bar, by yourself, just for fun?"

"How I choose to spend my free time is none of your business."

"Well, considering how involved I was in this _free time_ of yours—"

"You know what?" she cuts him off, thoroughly unamused by the way he raises an eyebrow, as if emphasizing the salaciousness of said shared _free time_. "It doesn't matter anymore. I'll talk to HR and get transferred to another partner – problem solved."

"And how will that conversation go, darling? _I became involved with my assigned partner, so I'd_ —"

"We're not _involved_." The word tastes sour in her mouth. "It was a one-time thing. It won't happen again."

"I'm well aware of that," he says shortly. He looks like he has more to add, but before he can deliver anything with bite, he hesitates, halting himself right on the verge of speech. A muscle twitches in his jaw as he appears to waver between two points, struggling with the simultaneous desire to both say and stay his word, but in the end, his unrest is merely exhaled in a tiny, aggravated sigh.

"You're right," he says when he finally speaks, his voice tight as though that sigh had done nothing for relief. "Perhaps a transfer would be a good idea. It's very clear that even if we wanted this to work out, it wouldn't."

And of all the surprises today, it's his last sentence, somehow, that stings.

Because she remembers what he was like, what they were like together, before – it'd only been last night, after all. She remembers how he had leaned in, the dim light of the bar glinting on the white of his teeth along the path of his tongue, right before she'd grabbed him by the collar and kissed him, far too wrapped up in the cheeky delight of his company to care about anything else. She remembers how they had moved in sync, bodies twisting together in a perfect dance of sweat and pleasure, and the way she had fallen apart around him had been so singularly exquisite that even now her skin prickles with faint heat, a ghost of the sensation, at the memory. She remembers how he'd whispered in the dark afterward, how she'd whispered back – and she hadn't realized she was falling asleep, honestly, hadn't _meant_ to fall asleep there with him at all, the words slipping from her mind and slurring on her tongue, until it was far, far too late.

She remembers all of these things, and she _knows_ he does too – so it's his disregard for everything that makes his words a lie, even if it means nothing in the end, that has her nettled. But, she reminds herself with a firm mental shake, it doesn't matter. Like she'd already said, none of it matters anymore.

She hikes up her chin, looks him straight in the eye.

"Fine."

"Fine," he repeats, as if testing her resolve.

"Fine," she says again, for the last time. "I'll get a transfer."

"Fantastic." She holds his hard gaze, blue eyes familiar but steely. "I'll have the paperwork drawn up straight away."

"No, I'll do it," she tells him. What she doesn't tell him is that, if she's going to be cutting all ties with him, she'd rather do it now than waffle around with his secretary, right outside his office, for the time it'd take to get things ironed out.

"Do you even know what paperwork you'll need?"

She rolls her eyes. " _I'm_ not an idiot either, you know. I'm pretty sure I can figure it out."

He blinks at her. And then, before she knows it, as though he himself doesn't even realize, a slow smile unfurls across his face, curving with a mischief she's not sure is intentional until he opens his mouth again. "I knew you were a quick learner."

"All right," she says firmly. "Good _bye_."

And she turns and strides right out his door without a backward glance, her only thought how much she's _not_ going to miss this fucking conversational minefield once she's transferred, preferably to the other side of the building. But even after she's passed the glass wall bearing his name, she can't douse from her mind the last thing she'd seen before turning away – the glimmer of the man with whom she'd spent the night tucked into his smile like a secret.

The same secret she carries as she hurries down the hallway, feeling as though even if she were put on the stand, she could hide it from any jury in the world.

* * *

She should have known it wouldn't be as simple as that.

* * *

"Emma Swan?"

The chirpy voice tears her from the folder in front of her, and she freezes, fork halfway to her mouth. She'd thought spreading out her papers across every conceivable inch of the table and (mostly) pretending to be engrossed in perusing the firm's most recent major cases (purely out of lack of other options until her transfer, unfortunately) would have prevented any awkward social interactions during her lunch break – it had certainly worked for the past two days. The bright-eyed brunette clasping a lunchbox next to her table, though, seems to have other ideas.

"Um, yes?"

"I'm Mary Margaret. Blanchard," pixie cut says with a warm smile, extending her hand in a delicate shake. "I work in HR."

"Oh." Emma blinks, unsure. "Is this about…?"

"Your transfer request? Yep." Mary Margaret gestures to one of the empty chairs, prompting Emma to herd her mess back into her space and forgo her plans for a quiet meal alone. She watches as the lunchbox produces a tupperware of pasta, followed by an apple, followed by a bag of baby carrots, and it's only when she finishes unpacking that Mary Margaret speaks again, meeting Emma's eye carefully. "I thought we could have a little chat."

 _Uh oh_. Nothing good ever came from an opener like that. "Uh…"

"Don't worry," Mary Margaret assures her. "You're not in any kind of trouble. I just wanted to talk a bit, off-record."

"Right," Emma says slowly. She pushes the soggy contents of her salad around, which suddenly seem much less appetizing (especially when Mary Margaret cracks open her tupperware). "Was there something wrong with the request?"

"Oh, no, all the paperwork was in perfect order; I just reviewed it this morning, actually. I saw that you cited _irreconcilable differences_ as the reason for your request, which is mostly only used in marital cases, but seeing as you don't work in family law I'll let it slide." She winks, and Emma forces a smile but doesn't speak. After a time, Mary Margaret continues, appearing to choose her words carefully: "I was just wondering… if something happened. You know, between you and Killian."

Her stomach lurches, as though she's just missed a step on a particularly steep staircase. "What?"

"I know he can come on a bit strong," Mary Margaret continues hurriedly, a look of concern marring her earnest face, "but he's a good man, honestly. He's a bit of a flirt, I know – my husband works with him; they're great friends, so I've gotten to know him quite well – but he would never intentionally do anything to make you uncomfortable. I promise."

"I, uh…" Emma shakes her head to clear her heartbeat from her ears. "What? No. It's nothing like that. Killian is, uh… he's great."

Mary Margaret tilts her head. "So what's the issue?"

Still reeling, it takes her a moment to find the right words. "It's… it's just that we don't really work well together." She shoves her shoulder upward, as though she hadn't only just stood in his office thinking the opposite. "We talked a bit about some of the cases I could work on, and we didn't really click. We think too differently, and I was afraid it would affect how we managed our cases."

The speech is textbook perfection, memorized to a T, but Mary Margaret's hawkish stare is measuring. "Really?"

"Yeah. I think we would both be much more productive working with other people." An understatement, for sure. Mary Margaret regards her for an unnerving amount of time, though it could just be that Emma almost feels bad for lying to someone who looks like she wouldn't hurt a fly.

In the end, though, Mary Margaret sighs, glances around the room quickly.

"Look, Emma," she says, lowering her voice such that Emma needs to lean in to hear her. "I technically shouldn't be telling you this as someone from HR, but as a friend—" Emma's not sure when they suddenly became friends, but she rolls with it "—I really don't think it'd be a good idea for me to process that request."

"What? Why not?"

Mary Margaret fidgets in her seat, giving her pasta a good stab before meeting her gaze again. "It's Regina. Miss Mills – you know, our managing partner?"

"Her name's on the door," Emma says with a thin smile. "Kind of hard to not to know who she is."

"She's not going to like it if you try to transfer so early into your time here. Trust me, you don't want to get on her bad side, and she'll definitely be annoyed with you if you don't try to work out what she's arranged." Emma's fairly certain the look on her face is beyond skeptical, which is probably why Mary Margaret shakes her head. "It's your decision, really, but she can make your life a living hell if she decides she doesn't like you."

"I'm pretty sure she already doesn't like me," Emma mutters, though she has a feeling Mary Margaret isn't just giving second-hand advice.

"If that's true, it's nothing compared to what she can do if she really has it out for you," Mary Margaret says, frowning. "Unless you have a spectacular reason for wanting a transfer, most associates, especially ones that haven't been here a year yet, stay with the partners they've been assigned."

Emma considers her, staring as she finishes. Part of her says to just suck it up and deal with the consequences, however severe they might be, if only to get out of the most awkward – and, realistically, the most irritating – work situation ever; after all, it's probably not anything she can't handle. The other part notes Mary Margaret's serious expression, the deliberate effort she's made to warn her of a threat that seems ridiculous but apparently has HR rolling out an unofficial policy just to protect the associates from their managing partner. If anything, it tells her that even coming clean might not get her off the hook, though the idea of revealing the truth here, to this relative stranger, in the middle of the crowded building lunchroom, has her balking more than any kind of miserable retribution she might face for the rest of her days at Storybrooke.

Before she can even begin to figure out how to respond, however, a loud clatter to her right announces the arrival of another guest at her table.

"Mary Margaret, I've been looking everywhere for you!" Another brunette, this one with long dark hair and bright red lips, drops a paper bag on the table next to Emma, who wrenches herself from her thoughts with a jolt. "Why aren't you sitting where we normally eat? And who's this?"

"Ruby, this is Emma." Mary Margaret sends her a sheepish, apologetic smile, but Ruby's is as sharp as a knife as she takes the last empty seat.

"Emma… Swan? You're the new associate, aren't you? You work with Killian upstairs."

"Guilty," Emma says, trying to salvage the rest of her papers from the table. The entire story feels a little too long for someone who didn't plant herself there explicitly to ask.

"Hope he hasn't been too rough on you."

Emma nearly chokes and drops all of the files in her hands. "Excuse me?"

"He's a nice guy, sure – kind of an asshat sometimes, but the guy's a total workaholic. And he flirts with anything that moves – you'd better be careful, but you probably know what I'm talking about already–"

"Ruby!" Mary Margaret interrupts her, looking faintly horrified.

"What? I'm just letting her know what she's getting herself into. Seriously, it gets kind of annoying after a while, but don't fall for it. If he starts getting too frisky with you, Mary Margaret here is with HR, and she'll take care of him for you."

"Ruby," Mary Margaret begins again, but the mixture of amusement and pity on Ruby's face has a defensive response out of her mouth before she even realizes it.

"I'm pretty sure I can handle it."

There's a short, surprised silence, during which Emma, chagrined, realizes how that may have sounded more condescending than she would have liked, so she quickly adds, "I mean, it's not a big deal. I've had to deal with worse on a regular basis for work."

Mary Margaret's slow smile holds a touch too much relief for her to find it completely reassuring, but somehow that seems less important than the way Ruby snorts, "Really? In Portland?"

Emma narrows her eyes. "What department do you work in again?"

"Family," Ruby replies, "but don't be fooled – the cases there can get pretty nasty." That wasn't necessarily what she'd meant (in retrospect, she supposes her question would have been better phrased _how much does Mary Margaret tell you about incoming employees?_ ), but Emma takes it in stride.

"What, in divorce cases? That's just catty ex-spouses trying to break their prenups, isn't it?"

"You'd be surprised at what people would do for love," Mary Margaret says, a faraway look in her eye, until Ruby swats her on the arm.

"Don't make it sound romantic!"

And Emma can't help it – for the first time since she stepped foot in Storybrooke, since she pivoted right back into the life of the _one person_ she knew in Boston and never expected to see again, she forgets all about this complicated, ridiculous mess she's made for herself and lets out a full-bodied, genuine laugh.

* * *

(Nothing sobers her up like the unassuming manila folder that awaits her back in her cubicle following that afternoon's leg of never-ending training – even the rainbow-colored sticky plastered to the front, while making the sender completely obvious, fails to achieve what she can only assume is its cheery goal:

 _E – Thank you for giving this another shot. You can do it! – MM_

Emma takes a few seconds to simply stare at the pile of her fruitless labor, weighing the cost of her fresh start against the stupidly handsome suit down the hall to whom she's somehow given the power to ruin everything, before giving up, marching resolutely down the hall, and throwing the entire stack down the shredder.)

* * *

"Thanks a lot for wasting my time."

If he's in any way surprised by the way she strides into his office without preamble, ignoring the closed door and the good manners she should have used to knock, it certainly doesn't show. Instead, Killian merely looks up from his computer, smiles when he registers her in the doorway.

"I take it telling HR we slept together didn't do much good?"

"Is this a joke to you?" Emma snaps, closing the door behind her before any stray ears wander nearby. There are two perfectly fine chairs in front of his desk, but she refuses to sit, instead crossing her arms and addressing him on her feet. "Why didn't you tell me I'd get in trouble if I tried to transfer?"

A single eyebrow arches up his forehead. "This is the first time I'm hearing of it, love. We don't get many associates who try."

"Are you sure? For all I know, this might not be the first thing you're keeping from me."

"What are you…?" His brow furrows, the humor finally fading from his face, and when he realizes her meaning, his mouth tightens into a thin line. "Bloody hell, are you still on about that?"

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize you'd ever convinced me to stop," she shoots back.

"For the last time, I hadn't a clue who you were when we first met."

"Right," she says, drawing out the word. "Like you haven't seen a single associate try to switch partners in the entire time you've worked here."

"Do you honestly think so little of me?" he demands. To his credit, he looks genuinely harried, if not completely pissed at the thought that she actually might. "Do you think I'm the kind of person who would willingly put you in this position? Had I known this would happen, I'd never have approached you in that bar in the first place."

Somewhere deep down, it's nothing she doesn't already know – hasn't known all along, even without the preponderance of evidence she's seen all over his face time and time again, because in that same spot buried thoroughly under all the cynicism she owns, she knows that the man she'd met that night _hadn't_ been that kind of person, and it's that same man who is sitting behind the desk on the other side of the room right now. Still, she finds herself asking, "So you regret it?"

"Of course I regret it," he says, as if it should be the most obvious thing in the world.

It's exactly what she'd wanted to hear when she'd asked, but her, "Good," still comes out a touch testy. In any case, her approval, however irate, seems to dissipate at least a little of the tension from his shoulders, though she still keeps her arms crossed over her chest. "Whatever happened between us is in the past. If we're going to make this work, I'm not going to let it linger into our working relationship, and neither should you."

He tilts his head, an entirely unassuming motion that somehow still feels full of intent. "And is there a reason you're concerned it would?"

The implication in his words isn't lost on her at all. "Of course not," she replies hotly. "I am not looking for a relationship, with you or with anyone. And that's not going to change – but even if it did, it wouldn't be of any concern to you."

"Outstanding. That should make things a walk in the park, then, shouldn't it?"

"Just tell me what you want me to do so I can get out of here," she sighs. She doesn't think much of her word choice until he seems to respond only with a subtle shift in his expression – the tightness in his jaw losing its agitated edge, making her suspect he's biting his tongue instead, the sharpness in his blue gaze brightening into something almost apologetic at his unwillingness to open his mouth. The reason for that deceptive repentance makes her groan. "Come on, really?"

"I didn't say anything," he protests. "But I'm hardly at fault if the thought crossed your mind, too."

"I'll have my two weeks' notice to you by the end of the day."

"Always so eager with the paperwork," he says, clearly undeterred by her blunt promise. "No wonder we hired you."

"Hate to break it to you, but my paperwork skills are not why I'm here," she snorts. "So you'd better not just stick me with all of the grunt work."

"Oh?" Although his face remains completely impassive, she can see the way the flecks of blue in his eyes are stirring with life. "And just what other talents do you have hidden under your," he pauses, his gaze flitting downward, for barely a second, "sleeve, Swan?"

"Sorry, buddy," she tells him, narrowing her own eyes even as she feels her lips twitch. "You've already gotten your chance to get up close and personal with me."

And that finally draws the curve from his mouth, though she swears that had not been her intention – the tiniest grin fixed on his face as though he's yet to realize it's there, tinged with mingled surprise and delight. That is also when she registers the strange little victorious jig that seems to be transpiring in her chest, one she thinks is born from satisfaction but knows feels far too familiar for her to be entirely comfortable, because it's the same dance she'd felt thrumming through her veins as she'd laughed in the company of a very charming, very good-looking man her first night in the city, thrilled that keeping up with him had felt as natural as breathing.

She sucks in a quick breath now. Because they're _not_ two strangers trading teasing ripostes in the darkness of a quiet bar and the warm shroud of mild intoxication; he's her boss, for all intents and purposes, and she's supposed to work with him – and that's something she'd do well to remember. She clears her throat in an attempt to clear the air, though she's not sure of what.

"Now can we actually talk about cases so I can leave?" she asks. Although his response is comforting to her guilty conscience, merely a brief gesture to one of the chairs on the other side of his desk, she's not too keen on how he seems to struggle with biting his lip out of the smile, even as she reluctantly takes the proffered seat.

(It feels distinctly like slipping into a bar stool, three seats away from a handsome dark-haired man nursing a glass of rum.)

In the back of her mind, the old adage about _playing with fire_ flickers to life, and, still feeling the remnants of her heart stuttering around in her ribcage, she can't help but think that escaping from Portland may have just landed her right in the midst of the flames.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading; it's wonderful to see so many people interested in this (not so?) little story! Just a quick note that new chapters will be posted weekly straight on 'til completion, for those who were wondering. Enjoy!

* * *

 **Guilty, Your Honor**

 _Chapter 2_

So she avoids him.

Well, _avoids_ would be the wrong word for it, and as a lawyer, Emma prides herself on her specificity. She simply doesn't go out of her way to see him, and if that happens to lead to zero contact from (and, perhaps more importantly, with) the partner with whom she is supposed to work her cases, she certainly won't be one to complain.

To be fair, in the beginning, she _had_ tried. The day after she'd officially started working for Killian Jones, she'd stridden down the corridor between her cubicle and the partners wing, case file in hand, and paused in front of his office, only to spot him deep in conversation with a short, sniffling gentleman she could only assume was a client. She'd stilled, though he hadn't noticed her, watching his mouth move noiselessly through the glass wall, before drawing a deep breath and marching over to Smee's desk instead.

"The background check and financials for the Crocodile case," she'd said shortly, plopping a manila folder down next to his keyboard, and made her escape before he could react. Killian's secretary is quite possibly the most incompetent legal assistant she's ever met – she's very glad she hadn't let him take care of her transfer paperwork, however unsuccessful the attempt may have been, because she does not enjoy the idea of being stuck in limbo for the next month – but she assumes he has enough sense to pass it on to their shared boss, as she hasn't heard a single grievance about overdue work since. In fact, William Smee's capacity as a conduit soon becomes her most valuable asset: between that and the mountain of cases she'd asked for in anticipation of this situation, she finds that she doesn't need to interact with Killian at all to work with him, and as far as things go, she's not too upset about that.

But she's not naïve enough to think she'd be able to get away with this arrangement forever – at the latest, she'll have to face the music once she runs out of things to do – and so it happens that, nearly a week after she begins working for the one man in the entire city with the capacity to cause her strife, Emma almost swipes her highlighter across an entire sheet of paper when she feels the sudden warmth of a hand on her shoulder.

"You are a remarkably difficult woman to pin down."

 _Of course_ , she thinks wearily, yanking her earbuds out with a sigh, because she really does not need him giving her a lecture about proper collaborative conduct right now.

"And, apparently, your attention is equally hard-won," Killian continues, sliding into the seat opposite hers with a casual unbuttoning of his suit jacket.

She chooses to ignore that, if only because there's something suspiciously impish in his careful smile. "It's the library, not a secret hideout."

"And yet you appear to have settled in as if it were a bunker," he says, though she doesn't see anything wrong with taking up an entire table when, prior to his unwelcome intrusion, she'd been the only one there. But before she has a chance to tell him that to his face, emphasis on the _unwelcome_ , he cocks his head to read the pile of papers closest to him, brow furrowing. "Are these—?"

"Medical records for the Oz Maternity suit? Yeah."

He frowns. "Those depositions are tomorrow. I was just coming to get these from you."

"And I would have had them ready if I hadn't just gotten them an hour ago," she says shortly.

A low whistle escapes his lips. "They stonewalled us?"

"Apparently." She shakes her head; this is the reason she hates fighting big companies. "So unless there's anything else you needed, I have to make sure… fourteen more of our plaintiffs have no medical issues that Oz might use to say their care had nothing to do with the problems they're having now."

He picks up the sheet at the top of the stack, eyes darting back and forth across the page. "Don't we have a medical consultant for this?"

"You mean the one getting drunk at the company happy hour right about now?" Victor Whale is a lot of things, especially according to Ruby's unsolicited account, but reliable is, regrettably, not one of them.

"The Rabbit Hole is only a few blocks away, isn't it? I could drag him back in here if needed."

"And have him work while tipsy? I'd rather take my chances." She narrows her eyes at him. "Are you sure you're not trying to make an excuse to escape to the happy hour yourself?"

"I'm not quite fond of this week's locale, to be perfectly honest," he says, smiling crookedly. "I much prefer quiet, secluded bars, so I can be by myself, for fu—"

"Do you actually have anything important to tell me so I can get back to work?"

To his credit, in the face of her exasperation, the humor dims from his. "It's nearly seven now. What time were you planning on finishing?"

"I don't know." She exhales through her nose, rubbing her temple with the back of her highlighter. "It took me the last hour to get through two plaintiffs, so…"

When his mouth contorts into a grimace, she knows he's run through the math in his head, though there's nothing to be done when the facts are what they are. She's about to tell him as much, too, but before she so much as opens her mouth, he's getting to his feet, slipping his suit jacket off of his shoulders and onto the back of his chair, before sliding back into his seat.

"Um. What are you doing?" She very deliberately diverts her line of sight from where his tie loosens and the top button of his shirt becomes undone, but at that point, fortunately, he's too distracted in rolling up his sleeves to notice.

"What does it look like?" he says readily. "I'm helping."

A faint prick of panic jolts through her system. "What? Why?" At the look he throws her, complete with raised eyebrow, she amends, "I don't need your help."

"And yet here I am, helping," he replies, reaching for the nearest closed folder.

"What, are you worried I'll make a mistake?"

"I think you made it quite clear that your skills are more than impressive, love." He makes to open the file, but she slams it closed with the flat of her palm, probably with slightly more force than needed. That, at least, gets him to look up.

"Why else would a partner stay late doing grunt work?" she demands. Under her scrutiny, his expression morphs from cheeky to defiant and, finally, to resigned, and it's only after he sighs that he releases the folder.

"Truthfully, love? I know this situation is less than ideal, but if we're going to make this work, we're going to have to learn how to be around each other."

"I don't have a problem with being around you," she snaps, but she knows she's lost as soon as the words leave her mouth.

"Then why have you been avoiding me?"

There's that insufferable, _infuriating_ smirk on his face, which is, more than anything, what prompts her to even try. "I… I haven't."

"Really, darling?" He leans forward, hand splayed on the folder next to hers. "Because if you truly haven't, and if you truly don't hold issue with my presence, then you shouldn't have any problem with my helping, should you?"

He's got her caught – outplayed so shamefully she can't even come up with a response. She has half a mind to simply gather all of the files in her arms, rise to her feet, and march right out of the building, possibly down the street to The Rabbit Hole, if only to keep him from following her – but her stubborn pride keeps her stuck in her seat, unable to pry the glower from her face.

Still, it takes a good five seconds for her to release the folder trapped under her hand.

"Don't forget to check family history for conditions," she tells him balefully.

"Honestly, Swan," he says, taking the folder with a satisfied flourish. "One evening in my company won't kill you."

She sighs as she reaches for her discarded earbuds, more than ready to drown out the sound of his voice with the loudest music her playlist will offer. "You know, sometimes, I really wish it had."

* * *

"You're an idiot."

"I'm not the one trying to interpret tone from an email."

"I'm not the one lacking basic reading comprehension skills. You don't need tone to know these emails are derogatory."

"All right, Swan," Killian says, crossing his arms on the table between them. "Even if that were the case, which it isn't, there's no way to say whether they were a direct consequence of the advertising incident."

"The time stamps all match up to the day after Queen Jewelry ran that faulty ad."

"Circumstantial."

She drops the stack of print-outs in her hands with a noisy thud, thoroughly missing when he would just keep quiet on his side of the table. "Really? _All_ of these people just _happened_ to start ragging on their CEO right after a marketing campaign used her likeness for their defective bracelets?"

"This isn't a defamation trial, love," he replies, jabbing at the pile with one finger. "The private opinion of a few judgmental employees is irrelevant."

"It _is_ relevant when the damages we get depend on the injury to Ursula Mare's reputation," she exclaims.

She can tell he has a comeback to that, because _of course_ he does, but he's barely lifted a hand in what is sure to be one of his elaborate gestures before a different one claps down on his shoulder, sending a visible jolt of surprise through his frame. She can't blame him, though, because the sandy haired man who suddenly appears at his side seems to have materialized out of nowhere for her, too.

"Is this why you never work in the library?" the man asks with a grin down at Killian, who merely fixes him with a scowl. "You bring the commotion with you?"

"This is hardly a commotion," Killian retorts.

"You're the loudest people here right now," the man says, to Emma's mild chagrin. Sure enough, when she glances around, the woman at the far table is reading with her fingers in her ears, and over by the front desk, the librarian who keeps enthusiastically reintroducing herself ( _Belle, and please let me know if you need help finding anything!_ ) quickly looks away when she realizes she's being watched. Reluctantly, Emma returns her gaze to the man's placating smile and, apparently, the wide hand he's extended towards her.

"David Nolan," he says warmly as she reaches across the table.

"Dav… You're Mary Margaret's husband?"

"The one and only, I hope," David says with a grin, releasing her. "I hope she hasn't been dishing too much dirt about me."

 _More like the complete opposite_ , Emma thinks wearily. Sometimes she feels like there might be such a thing as being _too_ in love. What she says instead, though, is, "Emma Swan. And likewise."

"I'll never tell," David says, at the same time as Killian snorts, "As if Mary Margaret would ever say anything bad about anyone." Emma remembers her hurried attempts to bolster Killian's character in the lunchroom on the day they'd met; while Mary Margaret hadn't been _entirely_ wrong, she keeps her mouth firmly shut.

"So what has the two of you so worked up?"

Emma exchanges a glance with Killian, who eventually responds. "Appropriation of likeness. Some jewelry store made it look like this big shot CEO endorsed some of their products, which turned out to be faulty."

"That doesn't seem like enough reason to be shouting at each other in Belle's personal sanctuary," David chuckles.

"We wouldn't be shouting if _this_ guy would just okay my strategy so we can go home already."

"We wouldn't be shouting if your strategy had any legal merit."

"All right, got it," David cuts in, which is probably a smart move given the trajectory of the conversation. He curls his fingers, bumps Killian on the shoulder with his fist. "It looks like you're not going to be making drinks tonight, so—"

"Bloody hell," Killian sighs, rubbing his temples. "It completely slipped my mind. Apologies, mate."

"Have you guys even eaten dinner?"

Emma frowns – apparently he's not the only one with memory issues. At Killian's noncommittal shrug, David shakes his head. "Do you want me to pick something up nearby? There's supposed to be a new Thai restaurant a couple blocks down—"

"No," she says, perhaps with a touch too much vehemence such that even David looks mildly startled. "It's okay," she continues hastily. "We're good."

"You sure? Mary Margaret has a work dinner, so I wouldn't mind the excuse to order out for myself, too." Across the table, Killian's arched eyebrow is pointed at best, but she firmly ignores him.

"Thanks though."

"If you're positive," David says. He pats Killian on the shoulder one last time and makes as if to leave, but he turns back around at the last second. "By the way, Emma, you're welcome to join us for drinks next time, if you want. If what this guy is saying is true, it'd be nice to see someone drink him under the table."

She feels her entire body stiffen, her mouth suddenly going dry. "Oh," she says. "Um."

"Stop trying to find people to compensate for your piss-poor liver," Killian says dryly, shoving an elbow into the leg behind him.

David laughs. "Maybe if you weren't so married to your job, I wouldn't have to keep trying to find ways to bring the work along with you."

Absurdly, for absolutely no good reason, that has the blush creeping up her neck. "I'll keep the offer in mind," she says tightly, and returns David's easy parting smile as best she can manage. She watches him until he reaches the doorway, well out of earshot, before she hits the table with her palms, leaning as far forward as it will allow.

"You told him?" she hisses. It seems to take Killian a second to realize her meaning, though in her book, that doesn't make him any less guilty.

"I did no such thing."

"Then how does he know I can outdrink you?"

He holds up his hands in the universal sign of defense. "He may have inferred it from how stubborn I told him you are. Also," he throws her a skeptical look, "I don't think the circumstances of that night were quite ideal for a valid drinking competition, what with all of the underhanded tactics."

"It's not my fault you can't hold your rum," she snorts before she can help herself, though when the first part of his comment clicks in her head, she narrows her eyes. "What else have you been telling people about me?"

"I suppose you'll have to ask David yourself when you go out for drinks with us," Killian says with a wry smile.

"Like hell."

His smile broadens, his lips curling over a row of perfect white teeth. "What, are you afraid it's going to feel like a date?" he asks, looking like the cat that ate the canary. "Like you're afraid eating dinner together in this thoroughly unromantic library is going to feel like a date?"

Emma exhales violently through her nose. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"I am hungry," he says simply. "If you want to sit there and watch me eat, that's your prerogative." He drags his laptop towards him, the screen flaring to life with a hum, and begins clacking at the keys with gusto, though a trace of smugness still lingers on his face. It's only when she swallows, her stomach protesting the reminder of the late hour with a thin growl, that she finally relents.

"Order from that new Thai place. And I'm paying for my part of the bill."

"Don't be ridiculous," he says without looking up. "This one is on the firm."

She's not entirely sure if he's joking, but the thought that he might be serious has her rolling her eyes, the corner of her mouth itching as she gets back to work.

* * *

"Jones?"

The light knock at the door feels rather pointless to Emma when the person behind it has already cracked it open, though she supposes it's all moot when everything is made of glass anyway. In any case, it gets her to stop wrestling for the phone, springing back from the desk to see none other than Regina Mills standing at the doorway, looking more disdainful than usual. Emma straightens her blouse instinctively.

"What is it?" Killian says, one hand over the receiver of the phone he's just unfairly won. She doesn't dare even a glance – really, with the glass walls and all, she shouldn't be feeling like they've just been caught red-handed, but _still_ – but she knows without looking that his tie is probably crooked. She doesn't feel an ounce of shame for it, either.

"Tamara Mendell is in the lobby."

"Tell her I'll be but a minute."

"She looks angry," Regina says with a thin frown. "And she has her lawyer with her."

"Shit." If he wasn't currently using both hands to retain custody of the phone, she figures he'd be running one through his hair. "I have Neverland Financial on the line."

"Which is why I'm here," Emma says pointedly, as though they haven't just spent the last ten minutes arguing the issue. "If you would just stop trying to answer the phone and _listen_ to me—"

"No." He throws her a firm glare. "I can't let you walk in there with a strategy based on intuition."

"It's not intuition when it's obvious she couldn't care less about her husband."

"Going to define _love_ for the court then, darling?"

"Going to define a black eye and a broken nose when a couple is obviously fighting over secret impending divorce proceedings, yeah."

"Is someone going to be there to depose Mendell or not?" Regina snaps from the door. Killian's head swivels to face her, his mouth twisted in frustration.

"I can't keep Neverland on hold," he tells her. "They've been trying to get in touch with me for the last week."

"I hope I don't need to remind you that the fate of the Mendell office has corporate all tied up until you fix this mess," Regina says in a clipped voice.

"I know, I know." He looks beyond irritated, one hand rocking the phone, one foot tapping impatiently as though he's halfway to flying out the door. She's never seen him lose his cool before – he's always a bit disheveled, rough around the edges like he doesn't know the function of a damn razor, but at a probably deliberate level that toes the line between _clean-cut_ and _roguishly charming_ (his words, not hers) – and though it doesn't look like she'll be treated to the sight of that now, it does seem like his slick lawyer façade too does not enjoy being stuck between a rock and a hard place.

It's dirty, charitable pity, then, and nothing else, that has her taking a deep breath, counting to five in her head before she speaks again.

"Killian," she says, as calmly as she can, though his name feels stiff and unnatural on her tongue from purposeful disuse (she finds simply walking into his office and announcing her business is as good an introduction as any). Her steady tone seems to take the edge out of his posture, hackles lowering as he turns back to look at her. "Let me do this," she says firmly. "I'm right."

His brow furrows, lips clearly twitching in anticipation of another sharp response, but he catches his tongue between his teeth instead, pressing a dimple into his cheek in an excellent show of self-restraint. He regards her with careful focus, blue eyes darting between hers for a time that feels a smidge too long, and she shoves the familiar sensation of having been here before – only where the lighting had been softer, the corner of his mouth curled more with delight than hesitation – straight down into the far recesses of her mind where she keeps that very specific memory locked away.

Finally, he huffs out a weary sigh.

"Okay."

"Okay," she repeats cautiously.

"Okay, you can handle the deposition."

It's petty, the thrill of victory that runs through her – petty, and maybe a little exaggerated given the relative insignificance of the circumstances – but it isn't too hard to keep the grin from breaking out across her face when Regina speaks up again.

"Are you sure you want to trust an associate with this?"

"Yes," Killian says, sending a glance back in her direction, a tiny flash of a curve to his lips that feels like a tentative olive branch. "She'll be fine."

Regina shakes her head from the doorway. "If this goes badly, you're fired, Jones." And she steps back out of the office, purposely propping the glass pane open behind her for what she probably expects is the speedy exit of another.

There's something Emma needs to do first, though, before she can follow their managing partner out. "I'm right," she repeats, half a reassurance for what she knows was an empty threat. The other half, begrudgingly, is a _thank you_ she feels like she shouldn't need to say – if anyone asks, it isn't for letting her manage the case, but for defending her abilities in front of the biggest fish in the firm.

"If you aren't, then _you're_ fired," he tells her, settling back into his chair as she heads to the door.

"You won't fire me," she says brightly, turning to grab the handle behind her. "Who else would carry your ass through all of these cases?"

And she fixes him with the most cheerfully fake smile she can muster, noting, with satisfaction, the way he shakes his head in disbelief as she slams the door in his face.

* * *

Emma buries her head in the nest of her arms, trying to drown out the headache blooming in her temple and the once-delicious smell of grease with the sleeve at the crook of her elbow.

Needless to say, as soon as he opens his mouth, it doesn't work.

"Let's go over the facts again."

"We've gone over the facts a million times," she groans, aware that he probably doesn't understand a single muffled word. "The only _fact_ we need to know is that Anton fucking Bean is going to lose his case unless he lets us go after the right people."

"Those people being his best friends," Killian says skeptically, a reminder of everything making her life so complicated right now.

" _Best friends_ don't keep screwing each other over."

"We can't prove that they ever did."

Emma sits up, looking him straight in the eye in a maneuver that feels too much like a glare. "This is the third time Midas Incorporated has stolen one of Anton's ideas. That isn't a coincidence."

"All we know is that they happened to have strikingly similar ideas in software development multiple times, and Anton simply wasn't quick enough," he says, infuriating as ever. "And besides, why would his friends sell his designs to an outside corporation when they all run their business together?"

"I don't know," Emma huffs. Before he has the chance to remind her, again, that they don't have a paper trail to prove anything anyway, she continues, "But it's obvious that they've been taking advantage of him. Anton is clearly the only member of their team with any talent – he's the one churning out their product, all by himself."

"Business and marketing are just as important components of a company, especially one with only three people to begin with," he says, raising an eyebrow.

"Come on," she rolls her eyes, "we both know James and Jacqueline Spriggins wouldn't even have jobs if it wasn't for Anton. I've shown you their records – they're completely incompetent."

He appears on the verge of speech, but in the end he merely closes his eyes with a slight shake of his head. "Why are you so convinced they're the bad guys here?"

"You were there when we talked to them," she says impatiently. "Anton talks about them like they hang the sun in the sky, but they couldn't give less of a shit about him. You _know_ it." She exhales through her nose. "You saw it, too."

If there's one thing she learned from her years as a lawyer, it's to keep yourself as far away from your cases as possible – and yet there's an edge to her tone, one that she doesn't know if she can chalk up entirely to aggravation, one that she shoves down her throat with a swallow before she has the chance to dwell on anything ridiculous. To make matters worse, with the way he considers her when he opens his eyes again, his blue gaze piercing, she also suddenly has to deal with the worry that she wasn't quick enough, that he'd seen it, too: the tiny sliver of herself she'd unwillingly wedged in a place it does _not_ belong.

Ultimately, she has no idea what his resigned sigh means. "All right," he says. "Ignoring the fact that this has nothing to do with the medical malpractice suit Anton actually _wants_ us to pursue, let's pretend you're right. Let's go over this from the beginning, step-by-step."

"This has everything to do with his medical malpractice suit, because that suit is a load of bullshit."

"Because you think his doctor didn't mess up the prescription, and that Anton didn't accidentally overdose. You think James and Jacqueline drugged him."

"Yes," she says emphatically, ignoring how bad it sounds out loud. "We have no proof that his doctor did anything wrong." The words seem bleaker now that she's spoken them out loud, after hours of fiddling with hopeless ways to spin their evidence, or lack thereof. "The prescription Anton has doesn't even match up with the one at the hospital. And there's no way that he accidentally took twice as many sleeping pills he'd been taking every day before."

"So his friends knocked him out, accessed his computer, and leaked his Compass software to Midas for profit."

"Yes."

"Despite the fact that they were weeks away from launching, and the fact that they knew they could put him in the hospital – and they did."

" _Yes_ ," she repeats, thoroughly done with his placating tone. "And they forged him a new prescription to make it look like it was his doctor's fault."

"I don't know, Swan," he says. He picks up a stray charred French fry and taps it against the delivery container, as though needing something to occupy his hands; she doubts he has any intention of actually finishing the remnants of their long-forgotten meal. "It seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through just for a few quick bucks that they probably would have made anyway, once their sales picked up – and an awfully big risk if they got caught."

"They may not have made that money selling the software on their own, what with them being such a small company. Not to mention their mediocre marketing," she adds distastefully, "courtesy of Lady Spriggins."

"So instead they decided to plot this elaborate scheme that could land them in jail?"

"It makes sense when you think about it," she insists, aware that she probably sounds like a psychopath, but persisting anyway. "I mean, apparently Anton's always been glued to his screen. And with the launch coming up, he would have been working especially hard, and he'd have taken precautions to make sure no one else could access his projects."

"Right," he says slowly. "So they'd have to be physically in front of his computer without his knowledge, after he'd already bypassed all of his security – which he probably only does when he's actually working on the code itself."

"Exactly," she says. "That's the only way they'd have gotten a way... in…" She trails off, her entire body freezing, and she watches his eyes widen on the other side of the table, gradually, as through the force of her realization has suddenly leeched the function from every other area of her brain.

"A way in," he repeats, barely a whisper. She stares at him for a beat, unable to close her mouth, and then time launches forward at what feels like double speed.

"Those files from Midas–"

"Here, they're over here." An hour ago, she'd been cursing all of the extra paperwork she'd had to sift through, searching for even a hint of unscrupulous behavior that could be connected to the Sprigginses, but now she couldn't be gladder that Storybrooke had worked an employment case against Midas a few years back, and that their file room is always kept impeccable order. As Killian digs through the cardboard box perched atop the empty seat next to him, she can't keep her mouth from running, her mind zipping between the dots faster than she can speak.

"It all makes sense. They didn't have the ability to get in on their own merit – they couldn't get in anywhere but with someone who considered them a friend, but that gave them a perfect way to access information that _would_ be valuable to big companies, the companies where they wanted to move up—"

"Here, this is it," he says, plopping a thick folder onto the table with a thud. She scrambles to take part of the pile inside, but she barely skims through a page before he's got her beat. "Look, they're here." He shoves a piece of paper under her nose, and, sure enough, there they are, listen in tiny font under his fingertip: James and Jacqueline Spriggins, halfway down what appears to be a list of prospective applicants to Midas Incorporated. Never mind the fact that the document in his hand is outdated – she knows off the top of her head that it's more recent than when the two of them had started working with Anton, and she lets out a short, disbelieving laugh.

When she looks up, he's shaking his head, and she suspects the incredulous smile spreading across his face is an exact match for hers. "You were right."

"Does that surprise you?" she asks.

"We can't use this in court – this won't be admissible, but—"

"But it's enough to get Anton to let us go after James and Jacqueline."

"Are you sure?" It's not meant to be argumentative, she can tell – merely a genuine question. "He didn't seem too keen on your accusations the last time you brought them up."

"He will be after we show him this," she says with confidence. "If there's one thing no one likes, especially a loner like him, it's being left behind."

And again, there's a touch too much truth in her words that rings in the conviction in her voice, but if he notices, he's too much of a gentleman to bring it up. Instead, his grin melts into something, unexpectedly, resembling pride, though there's a touch of smugness in his expression that doesn't allow her to lower her guard just yet.

"I don't mean to upset you, love," he says brightly, "but we make quite the team."

"Please." It comes out as a scoff, but she still can't will the pleased smile from her face. "It was my idea. You didn't do anything."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, Swan," he tells her, and it's then that she forces herself to look away, down at the mess of papers and dinner remains scattered across their table. Despite everything, she's sure her cheeks are tinged pink, though, to her relief, at least this time she can attribute it to the rush of adrenaline beating a triumphant, giddy rhythm through her veins.

* * *

"Whoa, whoa!"

Emma's hands fly up, partially to save her hot chocolate (and peacoat) from any potential disaster, but also partially because she's forced into a sharp curve around the human-shaped obstacle that comes within an inch of colliding with her head-on.

"Watch where you're going, buddy," she snaps, despite the fact that she'd been the one who'd been too busy with her scarf to pay attention to her trajectory. As is the case for most people, Mondays are decidedly not her best days, especially ones that have her running late to work.

"Apologies, la—Swan?" Her head snaps up from her worried inspection of her to-go cup only to be met with – of course, because who else would it be? – Killian's bewildered stare, frozen in the coffee shop doorway.

"Kil—what are you doing here?" It comes out like an accusation, but her glare softens when she realizes he looks as harried as she feels.

"Acquiring my morning fix," he says, stepping fully into the store to allow the people behind him to do the same. "Just as you are, I presume."

She purses her lips – naturally this would happen on the one day she doesn't have time to make breakfast at home. Of all the coffee shops around Storybrooke's office building, she just _had_ to choose the one with the most foreign-sounding name (so she's a hot chocolate snob – sue her). "Guilty as charged," she says, indicating her cup with a shake of her wrist.

"Do you come here often?"

"It's a little early in the morning for pick-up lines, isn't it?" she asks, but he only smiles.

"I'll take that as a no."

"This is my first time," she admits, though she's still in no mood for his attempts to be charming, including with that goddamn grin.

"Ah," he says sagely. "You're in for a treat, then, darling. You never forget your first."

"I don't know if you noticed, but we're kind of both running late," she says bluntly. Her hand moves to check her scarf again, mostly on instinct. "I'll see you at the office, all right?"

"No need to hurry off on my account, Swan." In a seemingly practiced maneuver, he turns to gesture at the barista with one hand. The (very pretty, not that Emma hadn't noticed it before, obviously) redhead smiles, then produces a to-go cup matching hers from behind the counter, which he takes with a wink that she pretends she doesn't see. It all takes less than five seconds, so she can't even complain about her lost time. "See, love? The perks of fidelity."

"We're not divorce lawyers," she tells him with an eye-roll. "You don't have to remind me."

"Just trying to save the bloke who wins your heart some anguish." He grins cheekily, apparently even more obnoxious than usual without his morning hit of caffeine. And with that, he strides to the door, holding it open for her while using his cup to gesture outside, but she only shakes her head as she follows him out into the brisk Boston air. Not only has it gotten cold enough for her to actually wear a scarf without pretense (her attempts at discretion that one morning were, sadly, misguided, what with the humidity), but the temperature has of late started slowly sinking towards annoyingly bitter, and so it is barely a step from the coffee shop that she finds herself burrowing into the warmth of her drink with an unintentional hum of relief.

"Hot chocolate?" he says, and when she turns to him, he's staring incredulously at her cup. When she twists it, she can see the scribbled _H.C._ just on the edge of her gloved hand. "I thought you said it was too early for sweets."

"Sugar is as valid a stimulant as caffeine," she replies with a touch of defense, even as she bites back a reaction to his double entendre. She sets a brisk pace down the sidewalk, Storybrooke looming in the distance only a few blocks away, though he keeps up easily with his long legs and enviable stride, unhindered by neither skirt nor heels. "And it tastes better."

He snorts. "I pity your dentist."

"I've never gotten a cavity."

"Really?" He peers at her as though attempting to inspect her teeth with x-ray vision. "You must have remarkably good genes."

"Probably, I guess." In her mind, the faceless, featureless images of her parents suddenly acquire two full sets of perfect teeth – but then she narrows her eyes. "Oh, wow. That was smooth."

"I aim to please, love," he says cheerfully, and, to her relief, he doesn't pursue the immediate topic. "Are you sure you're giving coffee a fair shot, though?"

"It's bitter and disgusting. What's there to like?"

"You've clearly never had good coffee before. Here." He takes the opportunity while they've stopped to wait for the light to change to offer her his cup, which she regards with what she's sure is a distasteful look. "Come on, Swan," he nudges her, "I don't have cooties, I swear."

 _If you had cooties, I'm pretty sure I'd already be in trouble_ , she thinks, but instead she takes the drink, glove brushing against his. Reluctantly, she brings it to her lips for the tiniest of tiny sips, pulling away as soon as the shot of warmth touches her tongue – but her subsequent frown is born from surprise rather than revulsion.

"It's good," she confesses, stealing another quick sip before handing the cup back to him, just as their walk light gives them the go. "It's… sweet."

"It's not real coffee," he tells her with a chuckle. "This is mostly sugar, with maybe a dash of caffeine. Or maybe the caffeine isn't even in there." At her accusing look, he merely shrugs. "Can you blame me? It's what helps me get through my Monday mornings."

"Definitely better for your teeth than hot chocolate," she says, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"You _should_ try their black coffee, though, if you get the chance. It's actually rather good." At this point, their conversation is stilled by the revolving glass doors heralding their arrival at their building, and beyond those, the lifts seem to have just arrived, bringing things to an awkward lull in the tradition of stuffed elevators. It's only when they reach their floor, stepping out into the firm's lobby with a smattering of other people, that she feels as though she can speak again.

"You must be joking if you think someone with a sweet tooth will like black coffee."

"It's the quality that makes it taste good," he insists. There's a hypocritical reply to that on the tip of her tongue, in which she criticizes him for his elitist taste buds, but her opportunity to jab at his ego wanes as soon as they slow their pace into the associates wing. In her periphery, the clock on the wall reads 8:30 on the dot, so she's not as late as she thought she'd be, though she figures it doesn't matter anyway since she'd arrived at the same time as the person with the most authority to reprimand her. The office is just beginning to come to life, and something about the sight of her colleagues bustling about has her shuffling on the balls of her feet, reluctantly switching into her thought process into business mode instead.

"I, uh." She glances up to where he's still standing beside her, perhaps also basking in the atmosphere of ramping productivity. "I'll get those transcripts we talked about to you in the next hour." His answering smile makes her suspect his mind is still somewhere outside.

"Don't burn your sugar high all at once," he tells her, eyes cheerful in a way that finally forces a grin from her own mouth, and then he's heading off down the hall to where the partners in their department reside.

It's only long after her paper cup has been tossed in her trash bin that the thought crosses her mind – the one where she realizes that they've had their first entirely civil conversation, and one outside of the context of their work to boot. It isn't as though she'd thought they lacked the capacity – of course, she knows all too well that they've done it before; rather, her discomfort stems from the fact that she hadn't even realized what had happened until so much later. Except now, with the memory of that time they'd shared their last real conversation, comes a very sudden, vivid reimagining of her struggle to arrive for her first day of work the following morning in a vastly different fashion, one that involves hot beverages and company from the bed to the revolving door downstairs.

As soon as she thinks it, though, the dull task of proofing briefs suddenly seems massively more appealing, and after burying her empty to-go cup in as many crumpled paper balls as possible, she delves into it with more enthusiasm than she can remember having for her work in a long time.

(A few weeks later, when her faulty alarm clock leads to another hurried visit to that same foreign-sounding coffee shop, she spends nearly four dollars on a plain black coffee that she can't imagine is worth the extra cost. Not much later that morning, the nearly full cup ends up standing in the middle of Killian's vacant desk, the words _FUCK YOU_ written across the side in tall, disgusted letters.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Guilty, Your Honor**

 _Chapter 3_

All things considered, Emma really can't complain when it comes to her (official, not counting the library) workspace. The square footage isn't anything to write home about, but at least she has her own desk, her own computer, and a low wall around her cubicle to keep her mess, including the tiny potted plant Mary Margaret had given her once she'd seen Emma's, quote, despairing lack of photographs, as private – and as intruder-free – as a waist-high barrier will allow.

Which is why, one determinedly very ordinary Tuesday morning – really, it's crazy that she's been at the firm long enough to have to deal with this already – Emma doesn't even look up when she senses a shadow looming in her periphery, leaning over her cubicle wall and clicking one long red nail against the top in a thoroughly unhurried manner.

She gives it a good thirty seconds, then finally removes her earbuds to face an extremely patient Ruby, her arms crossed where they rest along the edge of the partition.

"How can I help you?"

"Don't give that sickly sweet act," Ruby snaps, apparently over her show of civility. "You know exactly why I'm here."

"Is it lunchtime already?"

"Why have you not RSVPed to the holiday party this weekend?"

"Oh," Emma says, feigning surprise. "I didn't realize you were doing Mary Margaret's dirty work for her."

"The company holiday party may be organized by HR," Ruby says with a dirty look, "but Granny is doing the catering, and she needs to know how many people are coming so she can make enough food."

"Which is why the RSVP deadline has now passed, and I've explicitly not RSVPed. You know, to indicate that I'm not coming." She throws Ruby a serene smile. "That _is_ how it works, right?"

"Come on, Emma," Ruby groans loudly. "You can't not come to the holiday party on your first year here."

"Oh no, I'm not falling for that shit again." The number of times her friends have tried to guilt her into firm events with the _first year_ excuse are already far too many, and Emma's humored them enough. "I already said I'd go to Mary Margaret and David's holiday party. That makes me exempt from all other social functions."

"It's free food," Ruby insists. "Free food and free drinks."

"And mingling, and fake holiday cheer."

"Don't leave me alone with Mary Margaret and David. I can't stand third-wheeling them when they're in happy holiday mode."

"There it is," Emma says, grinning, appeased. "Though isn't Victor invited to this, too?"

"He's on a company retreat in the Bahamas," Ruby mutters darkly. "The traitor."

"Well, nothing to be done about that." She picks up her earbuds again, which Ruby promptly swats out of her hand.

"Seriously, Emma? You're really not planning on coming?"

"Rubes, I'm swamped with work." It's not exactly a lie, but it's not her preferred alternative to office mingling, either. "If I wasn't here at the party, drowning in cases, I'd be at home, drowning in cases."

Unfortunately, Ruby's response is not the sympathetic back-patting she'd been hoping for, or even the hand-wavey justifications for slacking she'd been expecting. Rather, her eyes light up as she speaks over Emma's head instead of towards it.

"Killian!" she says with delight, whereas Emma's internal response is a great deal less enthusiastic. The man in question rounds the corner around her cubicle and comes to a stop beside Ruby with his hands in the pockets of his suit, looking, for all intents and purposes, as though he's just stepped out of the pages of an exceptionally irritating catalog. "Tell Emma that, as her boss, you're ordering her to come to the holiday party this weekend."

"As your boss, I'm ordering you to come to the holiday party this weekend," he deadpans, grinning at her.

"Are _you_ even going?" she asks, though she couldn't care less about his answer.

"Of course I am," he says. "This is our yearly opportunity to compensate for all of the non-billable hours we've worked with free drink."

"Setting a good example for the associates, I see," she says dryly.

"Why, Swan, do you consider me a role model?"

"Anyone would have to be pretty desperate to."

"I would think about curbing my debauchery for your sake, love."

"Oh, don't stop on my account. If you die, I get your partner spot, right?" She turns to Ruby for confirmation, though the look on her friend's face – as though she's watching something particularly entertaining, popcorn and all – is far from reassuring, in more ways than one.

"Don't look at me. You can ask Mary Margaret when you see her at the holiday party this weekend."

" _Or_ in the lunchroom in a few hours," Emma hedges.

"Swan, are you truly not planning on attending?"

She sighs, resting her chin on her the pad of her palm. "Does it matter?"

"Of course it matters," he tells her, though she detects a hint of humor in his earnestness. "Community is one of this firm's core values, and to blatantly refuse to uphold—"

" _All right_ ," she says emphatically, peeking at the clock in the corner of her computer screen. "If I say I'll go, will the two of you leave me alone so I can draft this email before opposing counsel chews my head off?"

Ruby pumps her fist so violently she nearly topples the poor mailroom clerk trying to squeeze his cart through the walkway behind her; to her relief, Killian's wide grin is a bit less forceful, though the way it lights up his entire face makes her feel like she shouldn't be looking at him directly.

"Would it really be the end of the world if you got to know a few more of your colleagues, darling?"

"Objection," she replies flatly. "Badgering." He shakes his head with a light chuckle before following the mailroom clerk out of the associates wing, and she doesn't even realize she's smiling until she faces Ruby again, who is wearing such a suspiciously gleeful expression that she sobers almost instantly.

"What the hell was that?"

"What the hell was what?"

" _That_ ," Ruby repeats, gesturing vigorously between Emma and the space Killian had previously occupied. "Whatever the hell was going on there."

"A conversation?"

" _Banter_."

"That's just the way we talk," Emma says, frowning. "You and I talk that way all the time."

"Yes, but we're friends." Ruby pauses as though to consider something, and whatever passes through her mind sets her mouth in a coy smirk that Emma has absolutely no desire to unravel. Before she has the chance to repeat the terms of their previous agreement, though, Ruby continues: "Do you consider Killian your friend?"

Emma opens her mouth, then closes it again. It wasn't as though she was going to change her answer halfway – her hesitation had more to do with the fact that her first instinct was such a vehement negative that she'd surprised even herself.

Ruby hums, a small satisfied noise that has Emma certain, to her dismay, that her answer, or lack of one, was exactly the desired response. She taps one nail against the cubicle wall, and it sounds just like the click of a gun. _"Banter_."

* * *

Although she'd never admit it to Ruby, the company holiday party isn't as bad as Emma had expected. She does, however, make sure to begrudgingly tell Mary Margaret as much – she deserves it, after all, what with all the work she'd put into it – when her friend flits by on one of her cheerful rounds.

Instead of spending her time wandering around in the company of the few people she actually knows, Emma staunchly plants herself along a comfortable wall near the elevators, because it seems like whatever holiday cheer that had previously been suppressed by a show of professionalism all month has finally burst, vomiting a brightly lit explosion of decorative merriment into every crevice of the office – and the moment she spots a sprig of mistletoe, she knows she's not budging a fucking inch.

(And if a very specific person had come to mind with that consideration, she doesn't really think she's at fault, given that he's the only one here she's ever, _once_ , thought of in that context.)

So, no, it isn't exactly the holiday component of the party that makes it tolerable, so much as Mary Margaret's willingness to courier over a glass of champagne every time she passes by with David. And, she supposes, the time she spends with Ruby and her partner's secretary, Ashley, picking out the worst holiday sweaters in the crowd (they're compliments, to be fair, given the dress code of the event) isn't terrible, either, until Ruby gets a phone call from someone Emma doesn't even need to see the caller ID to identify, and disappears down the corridor into what she desperately hopes is a more private section of the office. After that, she has a nice conversation with one of the paralegals – Tink, she thinks is her name, though she has no idea if that's her first name or last name or what – about the plethora of gossip to be churned out by alcohol-driven company events such as this, to which August, a partner from another division, adds some of the older horror stories from his longer tenure at the firm.

The few notable exceptions, then, are what she feels makes her evening worthwhile. Aside from those, the party passes in a blur of introductions and small talk (the number of times she has to muster a fake smile and say that, no, she'll actually be working through the holiday, what with her incredible work ethic and all, is approaching a height that makes her cheeks hurt), which is why, in the end, she figures social exhaustion is as good an excuse as any for how she perks up at finally seeing a familiar face, even when it's one that shouldn't look so pleased to see her, and definitely not one she'd normally want to consider with even a drop of alcohol in her system.

But, as it is, she's on her third glass of champagne, and she can't help but smile as Killian squeezes his way through the crowd, planting himself squarely in front of her with a hand in his pocket and a bright grin spread across his face.

"Glad to see you enjoying yourself after all, Swan."

"Enjoying the compensation for all of my non-billable hours," she quotes him, raising her glass to match his own, and it's only after he lifts his arm in return that she finally notices his choice of attire. "What, did you not get the memo about the dress code?"

"Oh," he says, looking down at his sweater, which is black, of course (it seems as though his monochromatic inclination extends from ties to other clothing, as well), and completely void of design, save for a tiny holly pin at his breast. "I don't own any holiday sweaters, and David couldn't find the one he usually lends me."

Emma frowns, more than anything because he actually has justification for looking better than everyone else – though he definitely could have chosen a sweater that didn't cling to him so snugly, or one with a high enough neck line to hide the glimpse of his collarbone. Along with his rolled-up sleeves and dark jeans, he's the perfect picture of casual allure, and she expends more effort than she'd care to admit trying not to see the man from the bar in his relaxed composure. "You know, I never pictured you as a Scrooge."

"Oh? And exactly how much time have you spent picturing me in your head, love?" His grin curls into something more devious.

"Quite a lot, actually." She takes a delicate sip of champagne, watching his eyebrow rise. "I picture how I'm going to kill you all the time."

That earns her a full laugh, and she tells herself that it's the bubbles in her drink that are making her stomach quiver. "I actually never pictured you as someone who owned holiday attire, either."

"I don't," she tells him in no uncertain terms. "This belongs to Mary Margaret." Straightening the sequin-adorned front of her sweater, she allows the errant thought to cross her mind that they could have borrowed clothes from the same closet. Unfortunately, between the generosity of her friend and said friend's tiny frame, Emma has the distinct feeling the garment hugs her in all the wrong places, especially when his eyes sweep down her form, much more slowly than a simple appraisal should warrant.

"A Scrooge yourself, then?" he says when he eventually meets her gaze again.

She shrugs. "Not really a fan of the holidays." She probably could have worded that better – something to include excessive commercialization, something clever to mask how falsely nonchalant she feels – and while she's inclined to immediate chagrin, something in his serious expression has her mollified instead, feeling distinctly as though an understanding has passed between them.

Finally, after a time that feels too long, but probably isn't more than a few seconds, he speaks again. "I have a gift for you."

Her heart sinks into her belly like a stone. "Uh." She tries to recall, with some sense of panic, whether there had been anything cautionary in the employee handbook she'd been given about receiving presents from superiors, or even presents from coworkers. "I didn't get anything for you," she starts to say, but the first two words are barely out of her mouth before he's pulling his phone out of his pocket.

"Here," he says after a moment of tapping at the screen, handing her the device, and if she wasn't so taken aback she'd make some sort of joke about needing a new phone. As it is, though, she's struck dumb just by reading the first two lines on the screen.

" _We have considered your offer and_ —holy _shit_ ," she looks up at him, certain her eyes are blown wide. He's smiling hugely, and she has to read the email again to make sure she's understood it right. "You got them? You got the Lost Boys?"

"I did," he says cheerfully.

" _How_?" she asks, but then she shakes her head. "Never mind, I don't care."

"All that matters is that they get what they deserve, is it?"

"I can't believe you convinced their lawyers to cave," she says, nearly a laugh as she reads their settlement offer – nearly twice as much as they'd been hoping for, and certainly enough to cover all of the Darlings' losses, and then some – over and over again. "It's been _weeks_."

"I know," he says, seeming pleased with her response. "I only just spoke to them over the phone before coming here."

" _God_." She passes the phone back to him, unable to keep herself from returning his grin. There's nothing like a group of delinquents to press the proverbial thorn in your side – the worst kind of legal nightmare, the kind that keeps you at the office and up all night – long after you'd thought you were done being beleaguered by kids of that age. "I mean," she shakes her head again, this time in elated incredulity. "The Darlings are going to be thrilled when we give them the good news."

"Nice that they can finally get some resolution," he agrees. Biting her tongue, she makes the effort to look him straight in the eye.

"Thank you," she says, as sincerely as she can manage. It's not the gift to end all gifts, but it's certainly lifted her spirits about coming back to work on Monday, and it's just about the most exciting thing to happen to her all evening.

"You're very welcome, Swan," he replies, and she holds his gaze and soft smile for all of five seconds before hers widens and she shoos him off on an expedition to get her another drink.

* * *

The library is dead quiet, not even a murmur of conversation drifting between the shelves, and it's saying something that the sound of the page Emma turns is the loudest noise around. Though assault is certainly on the more interesting, if not upsetting, side of topics on which she could otherwise be reading, the deafening silence has her hyperaware of every tiny sound – the rustle of her clothes when she shifts in her seat, Killian's sigh as he shuffles a piece of paper. Even the M&Ms scattered on the table between them – her thoroughly unhygienic solution to her being hungry but the purchase being his on his way to the restroom – seem to make an audible clatter against the wood with every minuscule vibration of the floor.

She thinks she's imagining it when the clattering grows louder, but then it grows even louder, and louder still, until she finally looks up to see Belle pushing forward a cart of books in the aisle next to them. She pauses to gather a stack of abandoned texts on the adjacent table, then makes her way over to theirs.

"Got anything to return to the stacks?"

"Uh, yeah – here. Thanks." Emma hefts a small pile from the chair next to her, and Belle smiles as she places it on the cart.

"You two are awfully quiet today."

Killian looks up, shares a glance with Emma. "Are we?"

Belle's chuckle is a dainty little sound. "Whenever you're in here together, you're usually arguing up a storm."

"The perils of having such a feisty associate, I'm afraid." The corner of his mouth curls as he shrugs a gesture at Belle _,_ like _what can you do?_

"The perils of having such a feisty partner, more like," she snorts.

"Okay, sorry, sorry," Belle says, holding her hands up in surrender. "I didn't know that was all it'd take to set you off."

Killian shakes his head, smoothing a palm over his beard as he chuckles. "No need for apologies, lass. We should be the ones apologizing to you, for normally being so disruptive."

"At least I know our firm has a few lawyers with enough spirit to fight to the death." She flashes them a quick pink smile, which Emma unintentionally returns. "Though, I'm going to get out of here before I accidentally trigger something again. Is there anything I can find for you while I'm re-shelving?"

Emma prods the book in front of her distastefully. "I'm good. My faith in humanity is already being drained enough reading through the assaults in this book; I don't really need another."

Belle gives her a sympathetic nod, but something in her words has Killian sitting up straighter on the other side of the table. "Assault?" he asks, frowning. "I never heard anything from Guinevere about her husband assaulting her."

"Guinevere?" Emma stares at him blankly for a moment, the name so unexpected in her current mindset that it takes her a second to realize whom he's talking about. "Guinevere de Troye? Her case against her husband is for negligence, isn't it?"

"It is," he says. "So why are you reading up about assault?"

She blinks. "Wait, are you working on the de Troye case right now?"

A slow glimmer of comprehension unfurls across his face, blue eyes widening a fraction. "What case are _you_ working on?"

"De Vil," she says, and she would make a joke about them sounding close enough if not for the fact that she's not sure if she wants to laugh right now. Faintly aware of Belle slinking away in the background, as though she's confirmed her fears of starting them downhill again, Emma stares at him, unsure of what to say. When he'd walked into the library and sat down at her table – they table where they usually work; she refuses to call it _their_ table – she'd assumed he was working on the de Vil case too. After all, isn't the reason they've been working in the same space this entire time, when they often do, to facilitate collaborating on the same thing? She doubts he's still under the pretense that they need to learn to feel comfortable around each other, because even if she's still not sure if they're friends – if she can afford to call herself his friend when they share the history they do – she can at least give him that much.

(And maybe it's immature of her, to refuse to be friends with a man she'd slept with, but she'll take immaturity over any other reason she might be aggressively rejecting labels on this _thing_ , whatever it is they have together that lets them share M&Ms in a quiet library without speaking a word.)

After a long while, he clears his throat, and his words make her suspect he's just read her mind.

"My apologies, love. I'd assumed you were working on de Troye. Shall I leave you to it, then?"

What she _should_ say is _yes_. She should tell him she wants the rest of the M &Ms for herself. She should say anything to brush him off, because she shouldn't spending more time with him than she already has to, even when that time is spent in companionable silence. But what ends up happening is this: she shoves her shoulder into the most noncommittal shrug she can manage.

"You can stay as long as you get me another snack," she says, and she watches as his face melts into a smile – not a smirk, ready to tease her for _enjoying my company after all, then, Swan?_ ; a real, gentle smile that softens all of his features, brightens his eyes into a dancing shade of blue that reminds her of the ocean's waves. Her stomach flips over in her body, as though she's been drinking around him again, or maybe it's the stale vending machine candy, as much as she knows deep in her bones that it isn't. She quickly adds, "I'm thinking something with nuts."

"As you wish," he says, bowing his head with a flourish of his hand. She'd meant it more as a _sometime in the future, when these M &Ms are finished_ thing, but he appears to have taken it as a _now, right now_ thing, because he's pushing out of his chair, turning, and strolling right out of the library as though perfectly content with being errand boy to her junk food habit.

She watches him go, her eyes trailing down his figure, from his broad shoulders unhindered by his discarded suit jacket, down, down, to where his fitted slacks hug the curve of his ass. Her gaze follows him until he turns out of view through the glass walls, and then she buries her head in the fold of her arms, valiantly resisting the urge to let out a loud, frustrated groan.

* * *

"Swan? Swan!"

She jolts up with a start, nearly smashing the back of her head into his face as he apparently leans over her. To her relief, he jumps back just in time for her to stare blearily at his thankfully unsmashed, undamaged features,

"What? What is it?"

"You fell asleep," Killian says, watching her with an amused expression. She's fairly certain there's a crease in her cheek from her sleeve, maybe even a spot of drool on her chin – she's never been a very pretty sleeper – but all she does is lean back in her chair, rubbing her eyes and feeling the ache of her poor posture in her everywhere.

"Sorry," she mutters, but he merely shakes his head.

"You were the one who wanted me to make sure you stayed awake." He pauses, then adds, "Also, you were mumbling my name in your sleep."

She snaps up straight in her seat, nearly winding herself on the edge of the table, suddenly and thoroughly very wide awake. " _What_?"

"I'm joking," he laughs, and she lets out an exasperated exhale, glaring at him with all the force she can muster. In her opinion, there's nothing funny about nearly giving her a heart attack, or about jokes like that when they tread just a little too closely to the truth.

 _Not_ that she'd been dreaming about him in the middle of the fucking library, especially not inappropriately. But okay, maybe, _once_ , she'd woken up in a puddle of her own sweat, her pulse thrumming thick in her throat and the memory of a pair of lips warm at her neck. She swore she hadn't remembered a face to go with that clever tongue, that rough scrape of whiskers across her tender skin, but when she couldn't meet Killian's eyes later that morning, her suspicions were all but confirmed.

But it'd only happened _once_ – just once. Besides, who's to say she hadn't just been dreaming a particularly vivid memory of the night they'd shared, the last night she'd shared with anyone, as a subtle shove from her impatient, hormone-infested body?

(Never mind the fact that that night was _months_ ago, and yet her imagination had conjured the feel of him perfectly – his wet mouth, his soft hair between her fingers, the heat of his breath prickling goosebumps down her—)

"Swan?"

She jerks forward again, flustered. "What?"

"You were falling asleep again," he tells her, smiling ruefully. She runs a hand over her face, trying to regain her composure and her senses, and sure enough her cheeks are warm under her touch. "Perhaps we should call it a night. It's gotten pretty late."

"No," she says forcefully. With renewed vigor, she smacks her palms down onto the folder in front of her – it's not like she's going to be startling anyone else there, since even Belle has long since gone home – though it takes her a moment longer than usual to remember exactly what it contains. "Arendelle. Wrongful death. Finances."

"The numbers will still be here in the morning, love." He covers a yawn with the back of his hand.

"And Elsa and Anna will be here in the afternoon, expecting to hear how much we think they're owed for the death of their aunt."

"They said they _could_ come in, if we were finished," he reminds her. "We don't have to be finished."

" _No_ ," she repeats, with more emphasis. "We're doing this tonight." She's very much aware of her poor word choice, but her determination to wash out every dirty thought from her head with the mind-numbing dullness of reviewing financial records wins out over any chagrin she may have had. "Well, at least I'm doing this tonight. You can leave, you know."

"I know," he says, lips curling in a way that tells her he's not going anywhere, because of course he isn't. She merely shrugs and, struggling to hold onto her newfound energy, returns her attention to the file in her hands. Unfortunately, all of the numbers on the page blur together into a weary black smudge before she even figures out what she's supposed to be reading. She tries focusing harder, willing the tiredness out of her body as if it might be done through sheer resolve alone, but, as it is, her effort is wasted, because it seems like no time at all passes before he's speaking again.

"You know, I'm surprised you aren't a partner." When she looks up, his eyes are on a file of his own, highlighter hovering over the page, though she isn't sure if he's actually still reading.

"Why's that?"

"You know why," he says, but he doesn't continue until her silence forces him to meet her gaze. Beneath his dark lashes, his eyes are playful. "Your charming sense of authority."

If he were anyone else, she may have taken it as an insult, but she knows when he's just trying to push her buttons; besides, he spends more time arguing with that sense of authority than anyone else, without a single complaint or comment until now, so she figures she should at least own up to her ingrained disrespect for the technical chain of command here.

"I used to be a partner," she confesses, "when I worked for Storybrooke in Portland."

He straightens in his chair, looking her straight in the eye. "You _used_ to—you didn't—?"

"I didn't get demoted," she assures him. "In Portland they have non-equity tier partners, the kind that doesn't buy into the firm – I think they've been trying to make things more uniform by implementing that here, too, but it's harder with so many more associates."

"So when you came to Boston…" he says slowly, as though the pieces are clicking in his head.

"They didn't have a spot for me," she confirms, and then she shrugs like she couldn't care less – which she hadn't at the time, and still doesn't. "But they said they could transfer me as an associate, and I took it."

" _Why?_ " The single word is uttered with so much incredulity that Emma can't help but feel a faint flicker of pride at what comes next. "You could have gotten a job at any firm in the city. You could have kept your partnership, and you'd be making double, triple what you're making now."

"It wasn't really about the money."

"So what was it about?" His voice is earnest, thoughtful, and something about the way he looks as though he wants nothing more than to really, truly understand has her glancing away instead, down at the red-tipped cap of the pen in her hand. After a silence, he speaks again, softer this time. "Why did you want to leave Portland?"

Maybe it's just that it's late and the exhaustion is getting the better of her, but she swears he says it like _What were you running away from?_ Like _I don't own any holiday sweaters_ , like _I don't mean to upset you, but we make quite the team_ , like _I was celebrating a case_. Like, somehow, he _knows_ – not the answer, but enough to make her question exactly how much he'd known long before she'd even walked into that bar, through the door of his office, and into his life.

She's tired, her mind is working at about twenty percent – but somehow, it just doesn't feel right to blame that for finally drawing the truth from her tongue.

"It was a break-up." To her dismay, she sounds meeker than she'd feared. She watches him carefully for any sign of reaction – pity, she's searching for pity, really, but she doesn't find a single trace of it on his face, schooled into a completely neutral expression. He's silent as if waiting for her to continue, and though she hadn't been planning to, the words come to her quicker than she can take them back. "His name was Neal. We were together for – for longer than I'd spent with anyone, ever. I…" She takes a deep breath. "I thought he was going to propose. And I would have said yes. But one morning, I woke up, and he was just… gone."

Killian's lips whiten as they press into a thin line, but he doesn't speak. "He just… vanished," she says again, as if it might sound less crazy the second time. "All of his things – packed up, gone. No note, nothing. I called the police, in case something had happened to him, but they told me it looked exactly like what I already knew. But I waited." She closes her eyes with a sigh, then opens them again to stare at the table. "I thought if I just waited out the week, the month, he'd come home – come marching back through the door and explain to me what was going on. Except he never did, and by the time I finally realized he never would, I'd been suffocating long enough. I couldn't stand living alone in that apartment anymore, in that city where everything reminded me of him." She forces down the tightness in her throat, and the words to fill the end of her story arrive in a rush, as if more than willing to skip these details.

"So I decided to move, as far away from Portland as I could. It just so happened that Boston had a Storybrooke branch, and when I applied for a transfer and they offered me an associate spot, I said yes right away. It'd have taken me much longer to go to another firm, and I didn't think I had that time to spare."

When she looks up, his expression still hasn't changed. "And so, here I am."

He's silent for a moment, absorbing her words. She'd be worried that she's just bared her heart to judgment, disclosed just a tad more than the circumstances allowed, but she finds that she can't quite bring herself to care, instead simply sitting there in the ringing of her confession – not in apprehension, or resignation, but in acceptance.

When he finally speaks, it's the last thing Emma expects to hear.

"Thank you, Swan."

"What?" It comes out an unsure breath.

"Thank you," he says again, and she doesn't need to be a scrutinizing, keen-eyed lawyer to know that he means it. "I— That can't have been easy to share, and I'm honored that you trusted me enough to speak so openly."

"It's not—" She shakes her head, embarrassed, just for an excuse to avert her gaze. "It's not a matter of trust. Though if you do tell anyone, I'll end you." The last part is tacked on as an afterthought, as an attempt to levy the mood.

"It is, though," he insists, leaning forward such that it forces her to look at him again. "I don't mean trust in secrecy. I mean… emotional trust."

"Emotional trust," she repeats bluntly, and he shifts in his seat, running an agitated hand through his hair in that way of his. And then, for the second time that night, what he says feels like it's come out of absolutely nowhere.

"When my brother died, I kept my grief buried for a long, long time."

Emma's heart feels as though it's very violently stopped beating. "Killian…"

"When I finally did open up about it," he continues determinedly, as though intent on not hearing any condolences, "the person to whom I'd borne my soul – she was quite lovely about it at the time, but it was clear to me that she could not possibly understand how deeply it had affected me, and that she would not be willing to put in the effort to try."

He pauses, but, knowing that he's not seeking her sympathy, she doesn't speak. "I felt as though I had wasted my grief. I had spent all of this energy to confide in her, and all it had done was leave me feeling emptier than I ever had about Liam's death. So yes, love, I know how much courage it takes to entrust your burdens to another, because whether you realize it or not, you run the risk of further breaking your heart."

He's right – she can feel the truth in his words reverberate within her as absolutely as she knows the sun will rise in only a few hours, as she knows the tide tugs at the shore somewhere, at a place where that will happen nearby. As she knows that the word for what she feels for him in this moment isn't _camaraderie_ , or even _friendship_ , but something else entirely. A word she's loathe to try to define, not in the courtroom and _especially_ not here, not when all she can do is sit there, chest aching, breathless as though the space between her ribs has suddenly flooded with the truth of that unnamable word and left no room for her lungs.

Finally, she swallows.

"Okay," she says quietly. Although her voice breaks, it comes out easier than she'd thought it would, though she refuses to dwell on why. Her mouth quirks upward in a tiny smile, which he seems to mirror without realizing. "Emotional trust."

They remain there for the space of a few seconds, locked in what feels like some strange, fluttering limbo. Then, she ruins it by opening her mouth again, because it just needs to be done.

"Though I shouldn't have to tell you that the secrecy trust is still expected here."

His grin broadens at her (for the most part) jibe, though he may just be amused at how quickly she's changed her tune. He spreads his arms out to the empty library. "And whom exactly do you imagine I'm about to tell?"

"All the people who _would_ be in here if it wasn't," she glances at the clock on the wall behind her. "Holy _shit_. It's nearly three."

"That's what I've been trying to tell you, love." He raises an eyebrow, propping up his chin with a hand. "Ready to call it quits now?"

She narrows her eyes at him, his superior tone doing nothing but making her want to stay. "Nope. This is still getting done. _Tonight_."

His sigh is one of vaguely fond exasperation. "You'll be unconscious in ten minutes flat, I guarantee it."

"Maybe some chocolate is in order," she suggests, smiling sweetly, although her humor dims when she notices the spot of mischief creeping its way into his expression.

"Perhaps there's a better way to get your blood moving again, one that doesn't involve injecting it with more sugar." He pauses as if for effect, though all it does is prompt her to steel herself for what's sure to be another quality innuendo. What he says instead, however, after a smirk that tells her he knows exactly what she's thinking, is, "I'll race you."

"You'll—" She catches herself. "What, do you mean here? Right now?"

"Why not? It'll wake you up," he says cheerily, rising to his feet and moving his arms as if to begin stretching. "And it's not like there'll be anyone else around at this hour."

"You want to race. In the office. At three o'clock in the morning." She laughs, shaking her head. "No."

"Afraid you'll lose, love?"

"I know I'll lose," she tells him in no uncertain terms. She swivels in her seat, indicating her heels and skirt. "Does this look like marathon attire to you?"

"You're right," he says seriously. "You'd better remove your clothes – for safety, of course."

"And you'll be streaking through the halls right along with me, I assume?"

"Well now, Swan, if you wanted to see me naked, all you had to do was a—"

He's cut off by a heel thrown squarely into his chest; she's sure she's not imagining the unspoken _again_. But when he sees her kicking off her other shoe and getting to her feet, his expression morphs from sly to stricken, and the words go tumbling back into his mouth. "Swan, I didn't mean—"

"Relax." She rolls her eyes, but even as she bends to pull off her tights, she knows he's still staring at her with that same worried look. "Don't get your panties in a knot. And keep them on, just to be clear." When she straightens, it seems to take him a moment to tear his eyes from her bare legs and meet her gaze again. Her toes curl against the cold linoleum. "I'll race you. And I'll win, even in this dumb skirt."

Her willingness to play along appears to have caught him off guard, but the smile that eventually unfurls across his face is anything but uncertain. "Down the hall by the conference rooms, then around to the elevators and back here?"

"You're on." She takes her starting position next to him, facing the library door, and the way he jumps in place as though trying to loosen his muscles has her grinning, feeling as though she should be bending into a sprinter's crouch.

"Ready?" he says, and she doesn't miss how he glances at her out of the corner of his eye. "On your mark. Get—"

And she fucking takes _off_ , shouting over her shoulder about a clothing handicap even as his indignant reproof about _bad form_ reaches her at the door.

(And that, of course, is precisely where the janitor finds them the following morning, though it can't be more than a few hours later – sprawled across the library floor, completely unconscious, supposedly requiring a riot to rouse that is _not_ part of his damn job description, he reminds them grumpily. When she'd blearily pried her eyes open and peered around, dazed and disoriented, Killian had been flat on his back across the aisle, a respectable distance away, but it isn't until she's halfway home that Emma realizes how little that had probably mattered when the overall picture they'd made, complete with her heels scattered under the chair holding her crumpled tights, had been as incriminating as it already was.

Well, she figures, at least if she has to hide her burning face in her hands, there's no one else on the train to see it.)


	4. Chapter 4

**Guilty, Your Honor**

 _Chapter 4_

Emma has visited the downtown courthouse enough times that the path from the food carts back through the lobby and winding hallways to the courtrooms is a familiar one.

What is _not_ familiar is the sight that greets her upon her return: Killian Jones, shoulders hunched, elbows on his knees, jostling his leg with a speed that suggests he may be getting ready to launch from a runway.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were nervous." Unfortunately, he doesn't corroborate her words with any indication of having been startled by her arrival, merely glancing up from his bench against the wall.

"It's a good thing you know better, then," he says, a glimmer of a smile at his lips, though it worries her that it doesn't reach his eyes. He takes the proffered paper cup from her hand with a murmured sound of appreciation but doesn't drink, and she herself picks at the holder around her own cup as she shuffles on her feet beside him.

"Okay," she says slowly. "But in the hypothetical universe where I didn't, you still shouldn't have any reason to be nervous. It isn't like this is our first time going to trial."

"But it _is_ our first time going to trial against the Crocodile," he tells her, staring intently at the cup enfolded in his two broad hands.

She huffs out a breath. "So?"

"So? We haven't been the only ones working on this case for months."

"Are you seriously afraid of looking bad in front of the other partners?"

"That's not what I meant," he says with a look that suggests he knows she's perfectly aware. "There are a lot of people who have a stake in this case. Least of all being the long list of plaintiffs," he adds, a touch of sarcasm woven into his tone.

"This hasn't been the first time we've worked with a list this long, either," she points out.

"So don't you wonder why it's taken this many people so long to take action? This man has all but terrorized everyone who works for him – and yet it's taken them years to step forward in the first place?"

"I've been working on this with you from the beginning, Killian. You and I both—"

"They're _terrified_ ," he says, as if she doesn't already know. He rises to his feet, though she suspects it's an afterthought to his anxious energy. His pace is slow, inattentive, a small hobbling circle next to the bench where he appears to have abandoned his cup in favor of stuffing his hands into his pockets, and she'd be concerned about him accidentally crashing head-on into someone if not for the fact that the busy courthouse seems to be giving him a wide berth. "They were scared of what would happen if they opposed him, and they're still scared now of what will happen if they lose – if I lose this for them."

" _We_ are not going to lose," she tells him patiently. When he meets her gaze with a skeptical expression, she shakes her head. "Come on, you've never been like this about going to trial before. What makes this time so different from all the others?"

A muscle twitches in his jaw as he considers her, his mouth stretched tight around his frown. "It's Gold. He's not like the other people we've faced."

"Because he's cocky enough to represent himself?"

"Because he's good enough not to need a lawyer." He stops pacing, stilling right in front of her. "This man knows his way around the rules well enough that his behavior just skirts around criminal, but it never crosses the line – and he knows it, he's _planned_ it. He thinks he can smooth-talk his way out of this trial, worst case with just a few thousand dollars in damages, which is nothing to him and his fortune, when by all means he should be thrown in jail for some of the things he's done." Though Emma notes that, technically, that is a matter of opinion, the legal proceedings being what they are, she silently agrees with him. "He's the worst kind of criminal," Killian mutters, shoving a hand through his hair. "The kind that gets away with it."

She watches him for a brief moment, though his gaze is fixed on the stone pillar beside her, before speaking. "We might not be able to arrest him, but that doesn't mean we have to let him get away with it." They've never talked about this before – it's only been strategy and possible numbers and the occasional complaint about the opposition's dirty tactics, both as a case matter and as a legal roadblock – so she's not surprised that her superficial reassurance fails to dim the hard glint in his eye. So she continues: "If we make our case well – which we can, _you_ can; we've prepared for this – he'll have to hand over enough money that he'll never try it again. And that money will help our plaintiffs escape his hold on them without being worried about their finances. We just need to make sure we win, and we win big."

"Easier said than done," he mumbles.

"Well, you're not going to do it acting like a nervous wreck," she says firmly. Setting her hot chocolate down on the bench beside his coffee, she stills his arm before he can further upset his already distressed hair. There's a tinge of pink high on his cheekbones, but there's nothing she can do about that, so she settles instead for the tie he's seems to have slowly begun teasing apart. She focuses on unraveling the black silk, though her peripheral goal is to hold him in place before he can start pacing again, to force him to stand still and look at her – because if he does, he may actually start to believe her.

"You know I'm right," she says as she works. "Your nerves are just too stubborn to listen."

He's silent for a long beat before he snorts, a low rumble, a warm exhale against her fingers. "I don't think you have any right to be calling anything else _stubborn_ , love."

"And you do?"

"I never said that."

"You didn't have to."

"I think opposing counsel might call that _assuming facts not in evidence_."

She slides the end of his tie into the loop, pulls the knot snug against his collar. "Well, it's a good thing we're on the same side, then, isn't it?" Her gaze flits up to meet his unwittingly, but something about his expression snares her there, caught off-guard by the unexpected softness in his stare. She'd expected to see his mouth set in that teasing smirk, and while the humor lingers on his face, it's certainly second to whatever it is making his eyes flush with quiet affection, making her heart stutter when she sucks in a quick breath and tastes the scent of his aftershave, all warm musk and spice, on the tip of her tongue.

Without quite meaning to, she glances at his lips as they part around his words. "Definitely a good thing." It's a hushed murmur that sends a shiver down to the base of her spine, that washes over her in a swell of heat, between the tremor deep in his chest as he speaks and the light brush of his breath against her skin.

It's also something that would not be happening, she realizes with a dull pang, if she were not still standing so close.

She takes a step back, releasing the tie she hadn't known was still in her grasp and watching his entire body relax, as if he'd been holding himself rigid before.

"Anyway," she says with as much force as she can muster, the air slowly returning to her lungs like she'd been holding her breath. Her brain stumbles to string together the most coherent thought in its capacity. "I refuse to lose the first case you assigned me."

A moment passes before his measured reply. "This _is_ the first case you'd taken on, isn't it?" The grin that tugs at his lips is just as slow to appear, but at least it seems genuine. "Bet you want to take the lead in the trial."

"Is that an offer?" she asks, despite herself.

"Unfortunately, it's not up to me," he chuckles. "Regina would kill me if she found out an associate handled the trial for this case, even—" he adds at her scowl "—one who used to be a partner. But by all means, you'd probably be the better choice here, especially when you're a little more clearheaded than I am."

It's high praise indeed, but her guilty conscience zeroes in on his last comment.

 _Doubtful_ , she thinks, though at least her head has stopped swimming now that she's given herself room to breathe. Just to be safe, she takes another step back, hitting the bench with the back of her knees, and she snatches at the excuse to look away, grabbing the two cups still balancing on its surface.

"You'll be fine," she tells him resolutely. This time when he takes his drink, there's a little more conviction in his smile, and it warms her more than the sip of hot chocolate she takes, her mouth curving around the paper rim as she sends him one in return.

* * *

"Was that…?"

"Mulan," Killian confirms as he clicks his phone screen off. The glare had been striking in the dim light, and Emma rubs her temples for more reasons than one. "Apparently Aurora just went into labor, so she apologizes but she doesn't think they'll be able to join us tonight."

"Oh," Emma says, blinking, her annoyance vanishing on the spot. "Well. That's one hell of an excuse for being late."

"She says to go ahead and use the reservation, though," he adds, and then looks around sheepishly at the plush leather seating surrounding them. Emma is fairly certain she's wearing the same expression, but she's not going to let her grumbling stomach, or the fact that they've already gotten comfortable in said reservation, stop her from keeping a level head.

"We probably shouldn't. I'm pretty sure the firm won't cover our bill when our clients aren't even here."

"This was never intended to be a business dinner in the first place," he reminds her. "Mulan and Aurora wanted to thank us for winning their case."

She knows this, of course – Storybrooke is pretty generous when it comes to company expenses, but she doubts accounting would be too happy about a bill from a restaurant like this – so she has another protest lined up and ready. "Well, we should give the reservation to some other group. It's not like we need it, and I'm sure there are loads of people waiting outside for a table."

Killian throws her a pointed look, glancing from her glass of water and back to her face. "Yes, I'm sure our waiter will be thrilled that we wasted twenty minutes of his time just sitting here, drinking water. Shall I call for the check, then?"

She glowers at him. "I'm just trying to help out some of the poor saps waiting outside in the cold."

"Charitable as your supposed intentions may be, Swan, it's the middle of spring, and you are painfully transparent," he replies, leaning in with a forearm pressed to the table. Earlier, she had been glad they chose to sit on opposite sides of the booth, at least while waiting for the happy and then-expecting couple to arrive, but now she's not too keen on how it forces her to look directly into his wide, gleaming smile. Then again, the alternative doesn't sound too much better. "If you don't want to have dinner here with me, you could simply say so."

Emma bites her tongue, then glances around the restaurant. "This is a high-end place, Killian." What she doesn't say is that she counts at least seven other tables in the packed room that hold only two people, and she's fairly certain those parties hadn't been stood up by appreciative business clients.

"I'll cover you," he offers, which of course is even worse.

" _No_."

"Well, you should at least allow me to pay for our drinks, because I am about to order the most expensive wine on the menu." She hadn't noticed the waiter approaching their table, so preoccupied by the familiarity ringing in his words that by the time she realizes he's there, Killian is already rattling off some fancy-sounding French name and sending him on his merry way, finally appeased by their willingness to empty their pockets. When he turns back to meet her frown, he merely shrugs. "As the Romans do."

"I hope you're prepared to down both of those drinks," she tells him.

"Oh, you mean when you leave?" He cocks his head to the side. "That's perfectly fine; as you may remember, I have no shame about sitting and drinking without company. Actually," he twists in his seat, as though making a show of searching for the staff, "in that case, I may as well ask them to relocate me to the bar for easier access." She snorts, but he looks perfectly serious. "Honestly, Swan, if you'd really prefer not to be here, I could ask if they might put your wine in a to-go cup."

That finally drags the chuckle out of her, and even as she notes the pleased edge to his grin, she's not sure that she cares. Maybe it's the silliest reason, but the fact that she knows he really would do all of those things – had suggested them, in fact, just to give her an excuse to walk out, if she truly wanted to – makes her feel like doing the exact opposite. Maybe it's just that she doesn't like the image of him perched atop a bar stool, nursing a drink all by himself, or the one of her hurrying through the busy streets with a paper cup full of wine.

Maybe it shouldn't take so little to convince her to stay, but it has, and she does.

"This is sad," she sighs by way of concession. When she slumps backward into the booth in mock defeat, he seems satisfied, but unsurprised. "I can't believe I'm at a restaurant this nice, and it's with _you_ , because of _work_." Self-proclaimed foodie that she is, Ruby has dragged her to a good number of fancy eateries, but never anywhere this extravagant.

Unnerved, he simply tilts his head in her direction, mouth curling at the corners. "No handsome men taking you out to expensive dinners?"

"Are you seriously asking about my love life right now?"

"Humor me," he says cheerfully.

"No men, handsome or otherwise," she replies, smiling even as she narrows her eyes. "For better or worse, my love life is just as unfortunate as yours."

"Oh?" He props both elbows on the table now, leaning toward her as if in playful challenge. "And what would you know about my love life, Swan?"

"I know you spend more time at the office than you do at home," she says, counting off on her fingers, "and that you've spent the last three weekends locked in the library with me, which doesn't sound like the behavior of someone trying to maintain an active love life. And," she adds with a touch of accusation, "you'd think I'd have heard even a mention of a significant other in your life, at this point."

Even as she says it, she thinks back to that woman he'd spoken of, the one in whom he had confided, the one he'd implied had broken his heart – the conversation feels imprinted in her memory for reasons she doesn't want to consider – though she doubts that's something he wants to revisit, right here, right now, in public. But by the way he raises an eyebrow, she gets the feeling he can read the lie on her face as easily as if she were an open book.

"Perceptive as always, darling," he says, though not without a hint of amusement, "if not a tad untrue." She presses her lips together, unsure of how to respond to that, and something in her uncomfortable expression seems to entertain him even more. "Honestly, Swan, I'm flattered that you'd be so kind as to try and spare my feelings, especially with what we both know to be your delicate sensibilities."

"Do you really want to air out all of your dirty laundry with this woman right now?" she huffs out, unsure if he even knows what she's talking about.

"There's no dirty laundry," he replies readily, and then snorts at her skeptical expression. "Truly, love. Milah and I parted on good terms."

"So what was all of that you told me about her not trying hard enough to understand you?"

"That's not necessarily synonymous with a messy break-up, is it?"

He's right, she concedes, though she's not entirely happy about it; then again, she wouldn't want to be right about his love life being fraught with relationship issues, either. Perhaps to throw her a bone, he adds, after a moment, "Although, what I told you _was_ a factor in why we ended things. A part of a much bigger problem in our relationship, if you will."

She almost doesn't want to ask, but she's not sure if she'll ever have the chance again. "And what was that?"

He smiles with a touch of pity, as if sorry that her unfortunate curiosity is about to subject her to such an unpleasant tale. "I couldn't give her the life she wanted," he admits, and she admires his tenacity to hold her gaze through it all, make it sound like _nothing_ though it all. "Milah was always moving, always looking for the next adventure. When we met, I was the same – I needed something to distract myself from Liam's death – but I knew I wouldn't be that way forever. Somewhere deep down, I knew I wanted stability, a place to settle down that I could call home. But that's just not the kind of person she was."

A shoulder lifts and drops, far too casually, and her chest tightens with shared sentiment, with the single word that rings so profoundly within her – _home_. "She didn't understand how I couldn't simply float past my obstacles any more than I could understand her desire for constant inconsistency. And so we ended things – though it was a civil, completely mutual decision," he assures her again, a tacked-on afterthought, as though she's the one who might need consolation for it.

But for all of his apparent nonchalance, she recognizes it – the strain that had slowly crept into in his voice, the revived scar, faded as it is, of something she knows only too well. Her heart still aching with unanticipated kinship, it's harder than she expects to formulate an appropriate response to that.

"That doesn't mean she didn't break your heart," she says at last.

His smile turns rueful. "A rather common affliction, isn't it?"

It's the empathy in his voice that tells her that she need not say more – he knows she understands. "Unfortunate love lives all around," she agrees, though she has to look down to avoid doing just that.

At some point during their conversation, the waiter had deposited their drinks on the table, apparently forgoing the usual pomp and circumstance that usually comes with serving expensive wine when it became clear that neither occupants of the booth had even noticed his arrival. Despite this, she goes for her familiar glass of water, reluctant to waste the alcohol on merely wetting her lips, her thoughts unintentionally lingering on the one part of his story he didn't say aloud. To realize that someone you once trusted didn't love you quite as much as you thought is one thing; it's another to watch your relationship fall apart bit by bit in front of your eyes. She knows what they say: slow deaths are always more painful – and it's reassuring to know that she might one day be just as bold about everything she left behind in Portland as he seems to have become about the wounds on his own heart, the ones she can't imagine enduring herself.

She doesn't realize she's staring unthinkingly at the glass of water in her hand, completely ignoring him without quite meaning to, until Killian clears his throat on the other side of the table. Maybe the way she jerks to attention isn't as flattering as she'd have liked, but her embarrassment is quickly replaced by suspicion when she notices his sly gaze.

"Maybe not… _entirely_ unfortunate," he says in a careful drawl, and it takes her a moment to process that he's still talking about love lives. She narrows her eyes as she inspects the small smirk that graces his mouth, a decidedly different kind of grin from the one he'd been wearing before. "There was one night, quite a while ago actually, that I spent in the company of a rather enchanting blonde…"

She rolls her eyes, but despite herself, she smiles. "Quite a while ago, huh?" she repeats wryly. "And exactly how many women have you been seeing since then?" This time it's him who holds up a hand, pretending to count off on his fingers, but she's not about to let him get away with it when he'd only just pronounced her right. "Here, why don't I guess, and you can tell me whether it's higher or lower?" she says, and then leans in to make the kill. "Zero."

He throws her a fake glower, and that's all the confirmation she needs, apparently, for tenuous delight to ripple through her. "I'll have you know, lass, that I am a very important lawyer in one of the city's biggest firms," he tells her matter-of-factly. "My commitment to serving the people transcends my own personal desires."

She laughs. "Right. So what you're telling me is that, despite all your bravado, in the end you're all bark and no bite."

"Well, that just depends on what you're into, darling," he says so suggestively that her skin prickles, right along the curve of her neck, a spot she knows is no coincidence.

"What I'm into is none of your business," she says, even if that had once been untrue. Watching his lips twist as though he's thinking the same exact thing, she snorts, shaking her head. "Besides, you couldn't handle it."

"Are you willing to make a wager on that?" Her tone may have made it sound more like invitation than insult, but that's still no excuse for how thoroughly his blue gaze darkens, glinting with that maddening charm – the kind that stirs the heat low in her belly and sends a flash of déjà vu through her foggy mind. No, she would definitely not like to make a wager on that, thanks very much, because she's suddenly sure he's running through a very thorough list of things in his mind that would have her blushing to the tips of her toes.

"I don't make deals with crooks," she murmurs. "Just their lawyers."

"Lucky for you, I'm both," he says quietly, grinning like he's aware of just how much she really is.

As much as she's ashamed to admit it, the rest of their dinner flies by in much the same fashion – a variation of the nice, quiet meals they've shared in the library, of course, only a bit (just a _bit_ ) more fun – such that she's unsurprised at the waiter's look of confusion when they inevitably ask to split the bill. Killian's insistence on paying for the wine is the one small concession that truly puts the final nail in the coffin, so to say, but she finds that she can't quite bring herself to mind very much by the end of the evening. How can she, after all, when she can't remember the last time she splurged like this? Her belly actually aches with the unfamiliar indulgence of it all, though it could just be that she also can't remember the last time she laughed until she couldn't breathe.

(That's a lie, of course. She remembers it down to the exact date, because the last time she felt this way was the night before she started working at the Boston branch of Storybrooke Law.)

In any case, that doesn't exactly help her cause, so she's definitely not about to admit it aloud. Nor does she have any intention of worrying about how she lets him hold the door open for her on their way out, or how the streetlights cast his face in a handsome glow as he hails a taxi for her at the corner, tucking them away from the bustling restaurant crowd.

And maybe, as she's climbing into the cab, his hand lingers on the small of her back (she can feel the weight of it through her peacoat, and the way it sends a warmth tingling across her skin beneath her clothes), and the seat ends up feeling a little too empty with just her alone with her thoughts and her clumsy, stumbling heart – but that, too, is no one's business but her own.

* * *

The cool burn of rum stings as it slides down her throat, but at this point Emma scarcely winces. Rum has never been her preferred drink, so the man leaning against the desk next to her, for whom she knows it is, should count himself lucky for her charitable spirit.

Her charitable spirit – and, apparently, her misplaced sense of pride. She tells herself that winning the Crocodile case alone would have been enough reason to celebrate – her first assignment in Boston, their longest case together – but thinking back to the courtroom, where she'd watched his entire face break out into a wide, elated smile as the jury delivered their verdict, she knows that's not entirely true. They'd worked on this case together, but from the moment they'd stepped into the courthouse, the floor had been all his.

And so it happened that Killian had returned from settling the details of their victory with their cohort of clients, only to find her sitting alone in his dark office, camped out with a bottle of celebratory poison and two matching glasses. He'd muffled an curse, sure, once he'd registered her leaning back in his chair, ankles crossed on his desk and a smirk on her mouth, but she'd gotten the feeling he hadn't been entirely surprised, either – not when, after he'd recovered, he'd simply exhaled through his bewildered smile, crossed the room, and taken a glass from her without any sort of hassle or fuss. He'd neglected the lights entirely, so his office is bathed in but the soft glow from the hallway, the fluorescents turned down low from inactivity, and from the city view outside his window, but she prefers it this way; theirs is a quiet celebration, and she doesn't need to see his face or hear his voice to know that he appreciates it. Appreciates this.

Which is how it happens that she finds herself drinking at work (though, to be fair, it's late enough that no one should mind), Killian swirling the rum in his glass in her periphery as he props a hand on the desk, crosses his legs even while standing. She hadn't given up his chair – as happy for him as she is, she's not one to pass up an opportunity off of her heels – so when his clothes rustle with the way he shifts, she needs to look up to watch him tilt his head back, the pale skin of his throat working as he swallows.

On her next sip, it might be a bit more than her tongue that burns.

"You didn't have to do this, you know." His voice is quiet, rough, the vibrations almost palpable through the air thick with their silence.

"I know," she tells him.

"This was as much you as it was me."

That isn't necessarily true – she may have helped, but it was his fight, in the end – but she merely shakes her head. "In that case, I'm expecting a bottle of something nice on my desk in the morning."

"Hot chocolate not doing it for you anymore, Swan?" he asks, grinning down at her.

"Even if that were true, anything would be better than that shit you made me try."

"I was only trying to broaden your horizons, love," he says, and something in her tone tells her he might not be referring to her beverage preferences. When he speaks again, though, he sounds serious, earnest. "Truly, though, Swan, I couldn't have done this without you."

She wishes he'd phrased that _without your help_ , if only because his words make her stomach twist, pleased. "That's not true."

"It is," he insists. "The reason I requested an associate in the first place was because I knew I wouldn't have been able to do this alone."

"Any one of the other associates would have done the same thing."

"No, they wouldn't have." It's not the implicit praise, really, but the insinuation behind it – _they wouldn't have been the same_ – that has her pressing her lips together, tracing the rim of her glass with a distracted finger.

"Are you saying that the Crocodile was the reason we met?" she asks. Not her best attempt at deflection, but she'll take it when it makes him release a short huff of a chuckle.

"Not the reason we met," he says significantly, and even through her frown, she feels the heat creeping up her neck, "but the reason we're here right now."

"Yeah, if we didn't have a case to celebrate, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't be here right now, either."

"If Gold wasn't such a bastard," he corrects her, "Regina might not have brought you to my office that morning looking like something the cat dragged in." She shoots him a dirty glare, but he only shrugs serenely. "Not that you weren't your usual lovely self, of course, but you did seem a tad… frazzled." The way his tongue wraps around the word makes her positive he knows they're both aware of exactly why that was – so instead of telling him the obvious, perhaps fueled by the flighty thrum of alcohol pulsing through her veins, she decides to bite him right the hell back.

"Maybe that's because I had to race across the city, _twice_ , sweating my ass off because I had to wear a scarf that morning thanks to you."

He looks momentarily confused; then, his eyes widen with delighted comprehension. "Did you, really?"

"You don't remember?"

"Quite frankly, I was a trifle too startled that the woman who had disappeared from my bed had suddenly reappeared in my office to notice her choice of attire."

This time, she feels herself flush real and full. "I had to go home to shower and change before work." She doesn't need to defend herself, but given the circumstances of this particular one-night stand, she feels as though she should. "You're a late sleeper."

"If I remember correctly, we had a late night," he says with a look that makes her positive he does – that he remembers every sordid detail. Every touch, every gasp, every bruise he'd kissed into her neck, her breasts – the way she'd writhed against his mouth as he moved over her with agonizing precision, the skin of his back too slick with sweat to find purchase with anything but her nails. Dully, she wonders if she'd left her mark on him, too. Then, she realizes he's silent, waiting for her to speak – or maybe also reliving the highlights in his head, judging by the way he licks his lips, his eyes darkened too thoroughly for it to just be a trick of the dim light.

They've long since moved past the days when an innocent but barbed comment would prompt a bout of flustered guilt (on her part, at least; maybe she's just always been too concerned about her own reaction to notice his, except for that one time he'd sworn he'd crossed his legs and kicked the table but she'd known better). After all, what time does she have to be embarrassed when she's too tired, too stressed, to irritated to think about anything besides how much she wants to murder him? At this point, their one night together has become but a blip in everything comes to mind when he does enter her thoughts, and it'd take (it's taken) much more than a particularly poor choice of words to get her hot and bothered when it comes to him.

But this – this is something different entirely. Swallowing, she tears her eyes from his mouth just in time to watch him do the same, though she hadn't even realized she was staring. They shouldn't be speaking so bluntly about what happened that night, and they definitely shouldn't be imagining it all over again, especially not at the same time, together in his office like this.

"I, uh," she sucks in a deep breath, less to clear her throat than to clear the air. "Yeah," she finishes lamely. "Maybe that was an irresponsible decision, staying up so late."

"Why, Swan, are you saying that you regret it?" he asks, cocking his head with a small smile. _So you regret it?_ Her question from so long ago comes to her mind in a flash, though it had happened what feels like a lifetime ago, in this same office, in a time when all she could think about was how to keep her job as smooth and straightforward as possible.

"I regret almost being late to work the next morning."

Of course, she should know by now how adept he is at reading between the lines, picking up on exactly what she chooses not to say. "Is that all?"

She snorts. "Is there a right answer to this question?"

"Of course there is," he says, rocking back on his heels to shift his weight onto the edge of the desk, and he places one hand on his chest. "It's the answer that comes straight from your heart."

He nearly topples over with the force of her shove, but he chuckles all the same. "How's that for _straight from my heart_?"

"I appreciate the honesty," he tells her, and she rolls her eyes, swallowing her smile with the bitter taste of rum. It goes down smoother with his silence, with her internal gratitude that he's let her answer go – but she's not too sure he's completely done with the topic when he appears to hesitate at the rim of his glass, bringing it to his mouth but then setting it back down in his lap. She's only watching him out of the corner of her eye, so all she knows is that he's not looking directly at her, either, when he says, quietly, almost as if to himself:

"I don't regret it."

She looks up. "What?"

"That night – I don't regret it." He meets her gaze readily, holds it for the space of a long moment, looking as though he needs a second to wrap his tongue around the right words. "I regretted how difficult it made things for you, and how complicated it made our working relationship, but I didn't regret the time we spent together. I… I still don't."

 _Of course I regret it._ She knows without a glimmer of doubt that this confession is meant to be an amendment to the answer he'd given her before. It had been the right response then, but it's the truth he's giving her now, and that has always been the one thing she doesn't know how to face.

Because she wants to say it. _I don't regret it either_. Just because he's admitted how he feels about the night they shared doesn't mean it's a confession for anything else he might currently be feeling, just as her answer wouldn't imply anything she may or may not be feeling for him in return – but it certainly feels like it. It certainly feels like a taboo revelation, one that shouldn't have even crossed her mind in the first place. It certainly feels like something that might derail all of their plans for a casual drink together, as obtrusive and arresting as if she got to her feet right now and—

 _No_. She can't say it. She _shouldn't_ say it. But she also can't lie to him, not now.

So she takes a deep breath, swallows her heart to make room for the single word that does leave her mouth in a gentle, tremulous whisper.

"Good."

He blinks down at her, blue eyes roaming her face in a way that has her heartbeat fluttering thick in her throat, in the pit of her belly, wound tight with guilt – he deserves more than this, but the air sticks in her lungs, unwilling to betray everything she knows. For what feels like a long time, he simply considers her with that same quiet intensity, but then his lips finally curve into a tender smile.

She exhales without having realized she'd been holding her breath.

"Good," he repeats softly – not in challenge, but in confirmation, and she knows without even thinking that he really, truly means it.

He turns back to his glass cradled in his hands, this time finally taking that abandoned sip. She traces his movement with her eyes, watching him set his drink down on the desk beside him with a dull clack, and the noise brings her back to her senses, back to the reality where her heart has not, in fact, stopped its incessant pounding in her ears. Her hands, she realizes, are trembling around her own drink, wrought with anticipation for what she knows she's about to do.

The clatter of her glass as it joins his draws his attention, but he's barely turned to face her before she's already moving again.

She leans forward, grasping his tie in her hand, and tugs him down to press her mouth gently to his.

He stiffens against her, and she knows if she were touching him anywhere else, she'd feel every muscle in his body tense. But his lips are warm, soft, and – she suppresses a shiver – just as she remembers. She holds him there for just a moment, long enough for the thrill to trickle through every nerve ending in her body, filling her down to the tips of her toes with a delicate glow – but before he has a chance to respond, she breaks away, just enough. The kiss had been barely a brush of her lips against his, a chastely prolonged touch, but her head is spinning with such weightless abandon she feels as though she may as well have just tumbled head over heels.

He doesn't budge an inch from where they'd parted, frozen in place near enough that she can still feel his heat on her cheeks, on her mouth, feel the faint tremble of his exhale brush her skin, even without opening her eyes. The scent of his aftershave mingles with the sweet tinge of liquor on his breath, clouding her senses like a dense fog, loosening her grip on his tie until her hand might fall away if he were to simply straighten his back. But he doesn't. And her pulse hammers with the force of one single, repeated word.

 _Why?_

God damn it. _Why_ on _earth_ had she done that?

She clenches her eyes shut, her stomach churning, preparing to withdraw and knowing, even as she does, that she has no explanation to give him – at least, not one she's willing to verbalize when he's made his feelings on the matter perfectly clear.

But in the next instant – he lets out a breathless sigh just before, her only warning – he shifts, his shirt rustling as he moves forward to kiss her again. His mouth moves over hers, gently, and she knows before she even concedes that she's completely, utterly, _hopelessly_ gone.

Her lips part beneath his, opening like a flower, and she feels the vibration of his groan as she slips her tongue into his mouth. Slick and sweet and hot, pliant and _perfect_ , he tastes like the drink he so favors, like a stranger in an empty bar in an unfamiliar city, but kisses her with a quiet hunger that hadn't existed then, even when he'd been fueled by more than a single drink and by the assurance of anonymity. Here and now, he knows whose head he's tilting back as he braces himself against the armrest of her chair, whose curls twist around his fingertips as he carefully holds her in place. He knows the hands that slide up the smooth plane of his chest, along his shoulder to where his collar meets the column of his throat, the palm that cups his jaw, though it's been a long time since the scrape of his stubble last marked her skin.

 _God_. The rum, the pretext for them being here alone in his dark office, any thought of consequences – it all fades to the back of her mind, consumed by nothing but _him_ and how but the feeling of his lips and a hand on her cheek can have her melting into his touch. It's only when her fingers, which have wound their way to the back of his head, slide into the soft hair at the nape of his neck, curl to tug it gently within her grasp, that he makes the most delicious noise in the back of his throat and breaks the kiss with a shudder. His breath comes in slow, heavy pants, as though he's just emerged from underwater, but with the press of his forehead against hers, she feels as though it's the best kind of drowning. Her pulse thrumming a tattoo into her skin, she swallows, breathing him in with a shaky, deep sigh.

"Emma," he whispers, voice rough as sandpaper, and her name on his tongue sends a shiver jolting down her spine. She wants to hear him say it again. She wants to feel him groan it into her mouth.

A flash of light that she can see even with her eyes shut floods the space of her vision, and she jerks backward, twisting her head to the hallway just as she feels him do the same. The disappointment she feels for the loss of his touch vanishes with the realization that the fluorescents have suddenly burst to life, filling the room with a bright glare through the glass walls – something that would only happen if the motion sensors detected movement somewhere along the stretch of the partners wing.

Sure enough, she has barely enough time to lean back into his chair, watching him straighten his back in her periphery, before a petite blonde figure makes her way into their field of view.

"Oh!" Tink gasps, freezing in the doorway. Somewhere in the back of her hazy mind, Emma has just enough mental power to guess she probably wouldn't have been so surprised to see them had she simply been passing by, and sure enough, she continues: "I was just coming to look for you, Emma. Neverland is having problems with some of the numbers you gave me." She pauses. "Why are you sitting in the dark?"

Emma doesn't dare even a glance at Killian, but it still takes a moment for her brain to regain verbal control. "The Crocodile trial," she says, and then clears her throat. "We won." Tink's eyes roam to the glasses of rum sitting next to where Killian leans against the edge of the desk.

"Oh, wow! That's amazing!"

"Thanks." The smile that pulls at her lips feels strained. Tink hadn't worked on the case with them – their work-related paths rarely intersect, despite the fact that she's one of the paralegals for their department – but the ordeal had blown up so hugely that everyone in the firm must know about it by now. "You said something about, uh, Neverland?"

There's a short silence during which Tink's gaze flits from the glasses, to Killian, then back to Emma, and when she speaks again, she sounds exceptionally apologetic. "Yeah, I'm on the phone with them now. They're trying to put together an accounting summary by tomorrow morning, and they need some clarification from you."

Emma rubs her temples. "And they need this tonight?"

"I've been in a call with them for the last two hours," Tink replies. "Sorry, I know it's late, so I can try to figure it out if you're, uh…" She trails off, but Emma hastily forces the words from her mouth before she can complete that sentence.

"No, it's fine. I wouldn't want you to be here all night." Praying the heat in her cheeks won't be visible in the light of the hallway, she pushes the chair back to rise to her feet, self-consciously tucking the lock of hair Killian had freed behind her ear. Then, she finally peeks over to where he's perched, and he seems to turn to face her at the same time.

He looks worse than she feels, blue eyes blown wide, pupils dilated into huge dark circles, twin splotches of color high on his cheekbones that she doesn't need the fluorescents to see. His lips, kiss-reddened and full, are parted with his breath, and she's thankful not only for the fact that she'd neglected any form of lipstick that morning, but also that his back is to the door, hiding his expression from anyone but her. It'd been a kiss – just a kiss – but she may as well have ravished him right here in the office for how wrecked he appears.

Wrecked, dazed – and so fucking good she's loathe to leave him here like this, not when he looks far from finished with her. But a few seconds more and Tink might get suspicious, if she isn't already, and this is _work_. She has no business thinking of all the other places he could put his mouth when her paralegal friend is standing in the doorway and their irate accounting firm is waiting on the phone. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips, suddenly dry with her cluelessness as to what to say in parting. There's nothing she wants to say that wouldn't be immediately incriminating, nothing she _should_ say that doesn't feel unnatural in her mouth, and it's only then that she realizes that he hasn't spoken once since their unwelcome interruption – perhaps for good reason.

She takes a deep breath, opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. So she snaps it shut, frustrated, pressing her lips together as she hurries past him, around the desk and to where Tink is waiting in the hallway, using every ounce of willpower she has not to glance back to where she leaves him sitting in the dark.

"Did they, uh – did they say exactly what they were having problems with?" She doesn't even slow down for Tink to start walking alongside her, just sets a firm path for the paralegal department, too afraid that if she falters, she might lose to the temptation of turning around.

"Yeah..." Tink says slowly, catching up to her in a rush, matching her pace with short strides. "But it might be better if they explain it to you. They'll probably want to, even if you tell them you already know." Emma nods, struggling to put her brain back into an order where she might be even a tiny bit prepared for important, serious business talk, so she doesn't notice Tink's hesitation until she speaks again. "I'm sorry."

She sounds so regretful that Emma blinks, turns to her with mounting apprehension – and sure enough, the expression on her face is too contrite for a mere work request. Emma considers playing dumb, but Tink isn't an idiot, so she settles for biting her tongue instead, faintly mortified that, for all of the arguing she does on a daily basis, she can't even talk her way out of the fact that she'd been very thoroughly making out with her partner in his office in the middle of the night.

"I promise I won't tell anyone," Tink adds after a moment, and she looks so sincere that the embarrassment is briefly consumed by a rush of camaraderie.

"No, it's not—" Emma exhales. "It's not your fault. It was nothing." She says it with so much confidence that she almost convinces herself – except even that's a lie. She _knows_ it wasn't nothing, as much as she wants Tink to believe otherwise, and it's the kind of something they're going to have to discuss whether she likes it or not. Tonight, tomorrow, whenever – nothing will change the fact that this has shifted things between them, and this time they can't brush it under the rug under the excuse of it being an unfortunate coincidence. Maybe if the phone call doesn't take too long, she thinks, she could shoot him a quick text asking to meet her somewhere later tonight. Or she could save herself the trouble and just show up on his doorstep – heaven knows she's been there before.

Just the thought of the latter option has her heart flipping in her chest, the heel of her shoe catching on the floor in an ungainly lurch. Far be it from her to make assumptions based on the quality of a single kiss, but she has a feeling that, her decision pending, he wouldn't make her wait outside for too long.

But of course, she reminds herself forcefully, whatever happens _can't_ happen before they have that conversation. Which won't be until she finishes the _other_ conversation she has to have with their accounting firm about reasonable working hours and the fact that she needs to run off to speak with her partner about the status of their relationship, which may or may not include finishing what they'd started in a much more comfortable (and private) location.

She digs her nails into her palms, quickening her gait in a way that has Tink hurrying to catch up. Even with the prospect of a drudgingly irritating phone call ahead of her, her stomach, it seems, can't help but quiver with a kind of anticipation she hasn't felt in a long, long time.

* * *

As it happens, she neither contacts him by phone nor turns up at his apartment unannounced. By the time she finally hangs up with Neverland, having long since dismissed Tink out of pure pity, she swears the first light of dawn is just beginning to creep over the Boston skyline, and while the poor associate who got stuck with compiling numbers all night is probably dizzy with relief for the security of his job, Emma is dizzy for an entirely different reason. She has barely enough left in her to drag herself into a taxi and back home, but as she falls into bed without even removing her clothes, she knows it's for the best that no sort of serious discussion takes place when she's unable to even prise her eyes open, much less form a coherent thought.

Besides, she figures blearily, what good would it do for her to wake him when they're going to see each other in a few hours? He'd understand, probably appreciate it, in fact, and maybe it'd be better to talk in broad daylight without the vague influence of alcohol in their systems anyway.

Come the blaring of her alarm the next morning, she wakes easily despite her exhaustion, her subconscious apparently too pent-up for more than a meager amount of sleep. But she finds that she's not tired at all – rather, the prospect of heading to the office fills her with an energy she knows has nothing to do with work itself. If she remembers correctly, Killian should be free until a meeting with some prospective clients – some mother-daughter duo whose names she can't remember – which gives them plenty of time for a pre-work breakfast break. The harbor is within walking distance from Storybrooke but far enough away to be clear of prying eyes, and, though she's never actually been there, she feels like it'd be a lovely place to stroll with two cups of hot chocolate (or whatever monstrosity he drinks when it isn't Monday).

It's only when she steps out of the elevator that she figures she may have jumped the gun a bit: between the few early birds milling about well before the morning rush, the office barely carries a pulse. Her quick dash in the shower and dangerous maneuver to keep the train door open seem a tad overkill, especially when she walks the partners wing as casually as she can and notes that all of the doors, including his, are shut tight with vacancy. All evidence of their evening debauchery, she notices, has been cleared from his desk, but all it takes is a single glance at the chair behind it to have her fleeing the scene of the crime, suddenly hot beneath the collar of her blouse. Nothing left to do, she supposes, but sit at her desk and try not to bounce off the walls with impatience.

She doesn't even make it all the way down the hallway before a familiar face rounds the bend, albeit not the one she had been hoping for.

"Emma!" Mary Margaret says, coming to a surprised halt at the corner. "I didn't expect to see you here so early." Strangely enough, her expression reminds Emma of a deer caught in headlights, more startled than an unanticipated run-in should warrant.

"Wanted to get an early start," she replies, though she doesn't quite mean it in the job sense. "You're here pretty early, yourself." She smiles as she comes to a stop next to her. "I hope you didn't drag David out of bed with you."

"No, I was just checking my email when I got up, and…" Mary Margaret trails off, looking bemused. She seems to catch herself, pauses for a long moment before starting again, this time heading in a completely unexpected direction. "Emma, do you remember the conversation we had when we first met?"

Emma feels her brow furrow with the memory. "You mean when you warned me against getting a transfer?"

"I know it's almost been a year," Mary Margaret says quickly, "but I still think it might be a little early – especially since you guys just won the Crocodile case, and there's no way anyone, especially Regina, will believe you don't work well together after that. But also you've been working together for such a long time now, so I'm just confused as to why—"

"Okay, wait, stop," Emma nearly laughs, feeling as though she's just watched a bullet whiz past her without comprehension. Killian's caffeine habit suddenly doesn't sound so unappealing as she struggles to parse Mary Margaret's flood of words. "What are you talking about? I remember what you'd told me about transferring," she says, settling on the first and only thing she'd understood.

Mary Margaret tilts her head, and realization seems to trickle through her as she frowns. "Did you not submit the paperwork to get transferred to a different partner last night?"

"No," Emma replies slowly, watching her friend flip open the folder in her hands to reveal a very familiar stack of print-outs bearing her name.

"Oh," Mary Margaret says, tilting her head as she shuffles through the pile with practiced care. "Then I guess this transfer request must have come from Killian."


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Note: It was super fun reading all of your theories about the ending of last chapter ;) Hope you enjoy this one!

* * *

 **Guilty, Your Honor**

 _Chapter 5_

Six seconds.

That's how long it takes Emma to realize Mary Margaret is still speaking. She only knows this because all she can do is stare blankly at the folder and the watch-adorned wrist that pauses over the page, apparently growing concerned by her lack of response, until the person attached to that wrist finally wins her attention.

"Emma? Emma, honey?"

She blinks, tearing her eyes away from the header spelling out _TRANSFER REQUEST_ in huge block letters, and meets Mary Margaret's gaze with what she's sure is a dazed expression. The one on her friend's face holds only an excess of worry, but Emma barely processes it, barely even processes how she asks, anxiously, "Emma, are you all right?"

"I'm—I'm fine." She sounds as faint as she feels. Back on the page, the words seem to jumble together until the only thing she can read is the giant, mocking title leering up at her from every page in disarray.

"You don't look fine," Mary Margaret says, and Emma jumps when she takes her hand, the folder closing across her vision. She suspects it's meant to be a soothing gesture, her thumb grazing the back gently, but all it does it force her to look up again. "I'm sorry. When I saw the request, I'd just assumed it was from you. I had no idea you didn't know about it."

"I did know about it," Emma lies instinctively, but she knows right away that she's not fooling anyone, that she couldn't fool anyone even if she tried. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath to steady herself. "I didn't know about it," she admits.

"Maybe it was a mistake," Mary Margaret suggests, as much as Emma knows it isn't. "The system may have glitched out something from its archives."

Emma shakes her head, which suddenly feels heavy as if with the delayed effects of sleep deprivation. "Are you sure it was submitted last night?"

"Sometime really late – I only saw the email about it this morning."

That sounds about right. In her mind, she imagines Killian sitting alone in his office, just a few corridors down from where she'd been parked at Tink's desk, his face basked in the light of his laptop as he'd typed out these papers, and she feels more than faint – she feels sick.

Vaguely aware that Mary Margaret has started to speak again, probably armed with another well-meaning explanation for what could have happened, Emma interrupts her. "Listen, Mary Margaret, can I have this?"

Her friend glances where she gestures to the folder, then back to her face cautiously. "Are you going to use it to confront Killian?"

 _Confront_ seems like a harsh way to put it, but she supposes that's exactly what she's planning to do. "If I don't, will you?"

"Not if it isn't any of my business," Mary Margaret says, and even through the gratitude she feels, Emma recognizes the note of concern in her voice, one that has nothing to do with her position in HR. "But Emma? Maybe give him a chance to explain before you rush in, guns blazing."

Emma hefts her a weak smile. "When have I ever done that?"

It takes six seconds for her to make sense of the folder Mary Margaret eventually hands over, though not without another worried warning about jumping to conclusions – which Emma promptly ignores.

It's another two hours before she has the chance to do anything about it.

Of course, it obviously isn't for lack of want or trying. She swears she walks the length of the partners wing at least four times in the span of twenty minutes immediately after she parts ways with Mary Margaret, but he remains noticeably absent even after his colleagues arrive, one by one. After the third time, she's waylaid by an ever-confused Smee about some secretarial paperwork that is apparently out of his capacity to complete, and it's only after she waves him off twice with the excuse that she's a little too busy that she finally caves – after all, she can only pass his desk so many times with no clear purpose before she has to admit that defense is shoddy, at best.

Between that and her own clutter of urgent work, then, she's lucky she finally gets a break what she knows is a good half hour before his first meeting of the day. She hadn't been planning on attending, but after an entire morning of trying to suppress her distracted, uneasy nerves, she's ready to volunteer for anything if it means one less second of trying not to think.

Trying not to think about how she'd kissed him, and about how this had been his response. How he'd kissed her back, and then had turned around and tried to recant in the worst possible way.

He could have at least talked to her, given her an explanation instead of letting her find out like this. But there's only one explanation she knows makes sense – and that's the one thing she doesn't want to hear.

So it's with a touch of trepidation that she finally makes her way down the hall, and the stab of apprehension that grips her when she spots his open door feels unpleasantly familiar from the days she'd spent avoiding him, back at the start of their time working together. Her hand is clammy around the folder in her grasp, and she's upset to find her heart pounding an agitated staccato against her ribcage.

If she thinks that's bad, it's nothing compared to how it seems to drop out of the bottom of her stomach when she spots him from the doorway, for seemingly no reason but just for the fact that it's him.

He looks exactly the same as she'd last seen him (well, minus the effects from their kiss), exactly the same as he always does – black tie on white shirt, dark hair ruffled, the perfect picture of clean dishevelment. But still, she feels herself falter, especially when she notices how he appears to be shrugging on his suit jacket, getting to his feet as if in preparation to leave.

Her chance to make an escape of her own, however, disappears as soon as he glances up to meet her gaze.

"Emma," he says, looking surprised to see her. Surprised, she notes – but not exactly stunned, or worried, or guilty in any way. "Did you need something?"

He sounds so normal, as if this were any other day in the office. That, more than anything, throws her for a loop. "I, uh." She hesitates, eyes lingering on the crooked lapel of his jacket. "Are you going somewhere?"

A hand reaches to sheepishly smooth down the front of his ensemble. "Mal and Lily Page want me to meet them at their home. Apparently Mal isn't feeling well enough to travel across the city."

"Since when have you done house calls?" Emma asks, frowning. The part of her that has her convinced she knows him says there's some sort of innuendo to be made here, which is why she's all the more crestfallen when he only pauses, then shrugs.

"Since the Pages are paying us a lot of money to do it." She watches him sling the strap of his bag over his head before he regards her again, and she's not sure if she imagines the touch of wariness in his expression. "But I'm going to be late unless I leave soon. Is this urgent?"

She stares at him, vaguely disconcerted. "Um." _Yes_ , she wants to say, if not because it's the truth, because she needs him to stay long enough for her to dig the truth out from wherever it's gone and hidden, vanished out of the reach of her tongue. She clenches the folder in her hand tighter. "Are you going to be gone long?"

"Probably at least for the rest of the morning," he says, shuffling on his feet as he reaches for a spot behind his ear. "Though I have another meeting in the afternoon, so depending on how the timing looks, I may not be back until tomorrow."

One more day – that's nothing in the scheme of things. As soon as she thinks it, though, she has to bite the inside of her cheek, frustrated with herself. She isn't a coward, she _knows_ she isn't a coward, so why is she trying to avoid this conversation?

 _Say it. Just say it._ She inhales a slow breath. _Why did you put in a request to have me transferred?_ But her mouth refuses to form the words, feeling traitorously leaden with dread. She _knows_ the answer; it's impossible that she wouldn't. It's just that…

She just…

 _Damn it_.

She just doesn't want to hear him say it.

The realization fills her with shame – the realization that this, _this_ is all it takes for her to start shaking in her heels. The prospect of him telling her what she already knows. The prospect of holding her heart in both of her hands and willfully giving it to him to crumble. Maybe part of that shame also comes from realizing, far too late, that she'd somehow let herself be lured into this kind of bullshit _again_.

Why is it always so hard for her to accept the things she already knows to be true?

She swallows painfully. Her silence has already stretched too long – every heartbeat that throbs in her ears like a war drum reminds her of that. At the very least, if she's dealt with this before, she knows how to deal with it now. Attempting a detached persona she doesn't quite feel, she hikes up her chin, digs her nails into her palm to distract herself from the raw ache in her chest. The air feels thick, feels more difficult to force down her throat, but she manages it just enough to speak.

"It's not urgent," she says at last, and she's relieved to hear how level her voice sounds. "There are some papers that need your signature, but I can just leave them on your desk." There. Quick, painless, and efficient. His face seems to fall for just a fraction of a second, but then his expression smoothens into one of neutrality. He nods.

"Or you can leave them with Smee. He'll find a way to get them to me." The suggestion is so deliberate that she feels as though his message may as well have been _And you don't even need to come into my office to do it_. Which – it probably is. Well, she's not too keen on spending more time there – more time here, especially with him – either.

"Sure," she says shortly. She intends to turn on her heel and walk right out of the room as coolly as she can, but he seems to have the exact same idea at the exact same moment, starting for the door just as she makes to turn around.

She freezes just as he does, one foot outstretched toward the door, gaze snapping back to hers with a start, their mutual unwillingness to crowd the exit, or perhaps his reluctance to be near her, paralyzing them in place. The right thing to do would be to snatch at the opportunity like a lifeline and flee like a bird taking flight – but she can only stand there, staring, watching his blue eyes flit between hers, his expression melt from mild alarm to something… softer. More familiar. It's the way he used to look at her when he thought she wasn't looking, and, more of late, when he knows she is – those times are the worst, because there's nothing to hide behind, no excuse for how her heart flutters into her throat like she's some kind of goddamn cliché. Even now, blinking back at him, unable to breathe, she's certain she's not imagining the tenderness there, something she'd once thought was longing.

And despite everything, it fills her with the same sentiment, a kind of longing that _burns_. Despite everything, standing back here in his office again, she still wants to kiss him.

There's a sudden clatter from outside, the sound of a cart rolling down the hall, and she jumps. He mirrors her with an ungainly jerk, and just like that, the air whooshes back into the room in one heaving rush. Her senses clear in an instant, giving her just enough awareness to notice the lightning-quick flicker of his stare downward before he meets her eyes one more time, his face unreadable – and then he tears his gaze away entirely, gripping the strap of his bag across his chest as he hastens past her without even a parting word. She doesn't watch him go, merely stands motionless by the doorway in the exact same spot, staring at the space he had once filled across the room. Her fingers are starting to feel numb from how tightly they're clasped around the folder against her chest.

He hadn't even mentioned the kiss, and that's more confirmation than she could have asked for. She doesn't need to look around his unoccupied office for the misery to settle heavy into her bones.

It's like she's standing in the middle of an empty apartment in Portland again, and this time, she doesn't know where to run.

* * *

Where she runs, it turns out, is anywhere but the library.

The sight of the third table from the far wall seemed to have suddenly developed the unfortunate ability to sink her heart like a stone, and after about an hour of sitting at the one nearest the door, determinedly facing away from the back, she's already had enough of Belle's confused, then perceptively sympathetic looks, well-intentioned as they are. Her cubicle feels too cramped and too close to the partners wing for her liking, and far too many people stop by to congratulate her on the Crocodile case, which is just the icing on the cake, so it isn't long before she gives up, stuffs all of her files and her laptop into her bag, and makes her way down to the nearly empty lunchroom. The midday rush still a ways away, she's grateful to have an entire table to herself, to fill with her work and her thoughts and her pitch black mood.

(Really, the work was supposed to help with the latter two – after all, what else is she to do? The thought of taking a day had briefly crossed her mind, but she's loathe to admit how sick she feels on paper, permanently recorded into Storybrooke's systems. She'd much rather botch all of the things she's supposed to get done today. Either way, it's the distraction she needs. Theoretically.)

In the end, it doesn't come as much of a surprise to her that she's not nearly as engrossed in proofreading the damages contract Gold had sent over as she should be, knowing him. Her eyes keep skimming over the same sentence (the second sentence) over and over, not a single word registering in her mind, which is instead preoccupied with replaying the look on Killian's face right before he had left, over and over. There's no attempt at deciphering, just an unfeeling, unthinking loop of the same handful of images in infinite repeat, as if her body just can't help itself – and it seems like this, at least, is engaging enough that she doesn't even notice the presence of another until a hand closes gently over her shoulder.

For a brief, ridiculous moment, her pulse leaps… only to fall back with chagrined disappointment when met only with a very different pair of blue eyes, framed by blonde lashes instead of the dark hair she'd been hoping for. Not that she isn't usually happy to see David – heaven knows she could use his contagious smile right now – but even she can tell that the one she manages in reply is feeble at best.

"What are you doing down here?" he asks in greeting, settling into the seat across from her easily as he undoes a button on his suit. "Sick of the office already?"

She snorts. "What are _you_ doing down here?" He throws her a curious look, tilting the coffee cup in his hand as if it should be obvious – and, well, it is. She grimaces at having completely missed it. "Right."

"You aren't in the middle of something, are you?" It's a question less out of courtesy than one after her absentmindedness. He glances over her messy table, not a mote of judgment in his appraisal, which she appreciates. "You were staring off into space, so I figured I wouldn't be interrupting."

"You're not," she assures him. At least, he's not interrupting anything she should be doing instead of what she'd actually been doing. "Why, what's up?"

The look he sends her, half expectant, half amused, gives her the feeling he thinks she should already know the answer to that. The words that leave his mouth, on the other hand, leave her with an entirely different feeling. "I heard about what happened with the Crocodile case."

All of the blood drains from her face. "What?"

"Yesterday," he says, slowly. His eyebrows crease together as he frowns. "You guys won, didn't you?"

She exhales one sharp, relieved breath. David's piercing gaze is wary but concerned, and she tries her hardest to rearrange her expression into something more casual, to muster an appropriate response to that, despite her guilty mortification. Damn his particular phrasing. "Right. Yeah, we did."

To her utter lack of surprise, that isn't entirely convincing. "You feeling okay?" David asks, sounding like he has half a mind to reach across the table and check her forehead for a fever.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Emma feels her mouth pull into a tight smile. "We won."

He pauses, still considering her carefully. After a moment, he speaks again, dropping her heart into the pit of her stomach. "I saw Killian this morning."

Her lips are starting to feel strained. "So did I."

"He was rushing into the lobby just as I was leaving, but I can't remember the last time that man's been late to work." Neither can she, though maybe that's not saying much when stacked next to David's expertise. She stays silent, feeling uncomfortably as though her chair has just been whisked to the stand. "I said to him what I just said to you, about the Crocodile case," he continues, "and the look on his face was an exact match for the one on yours right now."

"Appreciative?" she tries, even as she knows she's fighting a useless battle.

"Awkward," he corrects her. David may be incurably optimistic, but he's not naïve, and he's definitely more observant than she'd like to admit. "Are you sure everything's okay?" he asks, then hesitates. "Something didn't happen with the deal, did it? Did Gold try to loophole his way out of it?"

It takes her a second to understand what he's talking about, but then relief fills her at how off the mark, though still perfectly reasonable, that guess is. "Not as far as I can tell," she says, though she neglects to admit that she isn't exactly far enough in his contract to know for sure.

"Then… what's going on? You guys are acting weirder than usual."

Emma has a reply to that, one that absolutely involves using that quip as a lifeline for deflection (she certainly has enough stories from all the times she's seen him with a drink in his hand), but she doesn't get further than, "I'm pretty sure you're not one to—" before she hears her name being called across the lunchroom. For the second time in as many minutes, she turns to face the source of the interruption, though the voice immediately gives the identity of its owner away.

"Hey!" Mary Margaret says brightly as she reaches them, her heels clicking loudly across the tiled floor. She hovers next to the table, giving Emma's shoulder a friendly squeeze, but doesn't sit, apparently too preoccupied with smiling at her husband. "You didn't chase Emma all the way down here, did you?"

"I don't think I could be that menacing if I tried," David grins back up at her. The way they're looking at each other, as is usually the case, makes Emma think they may have been apart for days rather than mere hours, and she suppresses the urge to clear her throat.

"Should I be worried you might actually think David could be that scary?" she deadpans. Mary Margaret opens her mouth, but Emma just shakes her head. "Don't answer that question."

Mary Margaret chuckles, the hand on her shoulder turning into a gentle shove. "What brings you two down here?"

"Just working," Emma says, just as David lifts his cup again.

"Coffee break." He doesn't seem as perturbed by the obvious question coming from his wife – and while Emma supposes Mary Margaret can be pretty oblivious at times, she has the distinct feeling this isn't one of them. Especially when Mary Margaret's face lights up far too quickly for it to be a coincidence.

"Great minds think alike," she says with a touch exaggerated enthusiasm. She looks as though she's on the verge of clapping her hands together, but maybe that's a stretch even for her. "Emma, do you want to join me?"

Emma nearly has to bite her tongue. "Sure." She's almost positive caffeine is one of the last things on her friend's mind, and though she has a pretty good idea of what the real motive behind this rescue is, an inquisition from Mary Margaret sounds like much less of a threat than one from her more perceptive husband. Speaking of which, there's no way David isn't equally, if not more, aware that something's up, but after only sharing a brief glance with Mary Margaret, he sends them off with a good-natured wave as Emma gathers her things back into her bag, shoving down the reminder from her conscience that she hasn't done quite enough work to be taking time off, and they leave him behind in the lunchroom to finish his coffee in peace.

This isn't the first time Mary Margaret has hauled Emma out of the office on some kind of food-related quest, but it _is_ the first time they've ventured farther than a couple of blocks on one. Ignoring the perfectly viable food carts lined up next to the curb, they walk in companionable, if not vaguely ominous, silence until Emma is certain they must have traversed at least a quarter of the city, though they can't be more than a few minutes from Storybrooke. Their destination, it seems, is a quaint little bakery on the edge of a tiny park she hadn't even known existed, which is also where they find themselves two scones and a cup of coffee later.

Emma, quite honestly, lets herself be led. There's no escaping this conversation, not after the way she'd left Mary Margaret hanging this morning ( _god_ , was it really only a couple of hours ago?), and her friend deserves at least something to quell her worry. A full explanation, on the other hand, might require a bit more emotional energy than Emma has at the moment, though she does appreciate the discretion in bringing them so far away from the office anyway.

They're only a handful of steps onto the park's main pathway before Mary Margaret speaks up.

"How are you feeling?"

"Right now?" Emma takes another bite of her triple chocolate scone, which had been met with silent disapproval as her choice of a late morning snack. "I'm feeling like this is the best scone I've ever had. What was the name of the place, again?"

Mary Margaret frowns. "Hansel's Cottage. But you know that's not what I meant." Apparently Emma's attempt at brightening the mood of their walk goes unappreciated. "You've talked to Killian already, haven't you?"

"How do you know?"

"Would I have had to track you down all the way to the lunchroom if you hadn't?"

Emma considers the edges of the paper bag in her hands; she makes a pretty good point. "I've seen him."

"And?"

"He said he had to run to a meeting and left."

Mary Margaret seems to hesitate. "Did you tell him you found out about the transfer request?"

"It didn't really come up," Emma says, which is the truth. Mary Margaret, though, isn't having any of it.

"Emma," she says, and it's her tone that forces her gaze back upward. "I thought you said you were going to confront him."

"I… I tried." In retrospect, maybe she should have just responded to Mary Margaret's initial question with a simple _I'm fine_ and been done with it. There's no real way to recount the situation without drawing attention to the glaring hole in her story, one she doesn't want to fill with a lie.

"So what happened?"

"I didn't." Mary Margaret's eyes narrow. "What?" Emma says defensively. "Is that really hard to believe?"

"That you pick your battles? Yes, actually," Mary Margaret replies with a shake of her head. "I've never seen you back down from anything once you've set your mind to it." That's a compliment, Emma thinks, but it isn't the reason she turns away again to tug at the wax paper around her scone. That's probably why she doesn't even realize Mary Margaret has stopped walking until her voice comes from somewhere behind her.

"Emma." Her friend seems to have planted herself on the edge of the path a few feet away, looking startlingly adamant despite the gentle picture she makes: all flower-pattered dress and bakery goods in both hands. "You know I won't force the issue if you don't want me to, but if something's going on with Killian, something so serious he had to put in a transfer request..." She breaks off, blinking fretfully. "I just don't want to see you hurt. He cares about you – I know he does, everyone knows – so for something like this to come out of the blue—"

"I kissed him," Emma blurts.

The words burn on the way out, but once they leave her mouth, they seem to hang in their air with a weight that has her relieved. Mary Margaret's reaction, predictably, is the exact opposite.

"What?" Her eyes widen to the point that Emma might find it funny – if this situation were anything close to laughable. "This morning?"

"No," she sighs. "Last night."

"Where?"

"On the mouth."

"Emma," Mary Margaret says, her lashes fluttering shut as the corners of her mouth twitch in exasperation. She takes the step forward to stand right in front of her, pausing, and Emma feels as though if her friend had a free hand, she'd be using it to reach for her right about now. "How did he react?"

Emma resists the urge to lick her lips. "He… he kissed me back. But we were, uh, at the office, so I had to go before he could say anything."

Thankfully, that last bit doesn't spark any kind of HR-ingrained disapproval in Mary Margaret's gaze. Instead, her green eyes melt with an expression Emma recognizes – the dreamy one that always appears whenever they touch on the topic of _love_. "It meant something, didn't it?"

"I don't think I'd have done it if it didn't," she replies weakly. She refuses to think about the fact that, once upon a time, she actually had.

Mary Margaret appears to have trouble containing her tender smile – but, just as suddenly, the light on her face dims. "So the transfer request…"

"Obviously," Emma says, dropping her gaze, "he didn't feel the same way." It's the first time she's fully articulated it, aloud or otherwise, and it feels like a punch in the gut. _He doesn't feel the same way_. Her chest aches as though someone's stuck it with a hot knife, and it scorches her up to her throat with pitiful dejection.

She should have just left her heart where it belonged.

"Oh, honey." Mary Margaret's sympathetic voice comes with a soft touch that jolts her senses – a set of fingers curling into her palm, her friend apparently having decided to juggle everything in her other hand. Still, Emma refuses to look up, afraid of the pathetic lows she might plunge to if she allows herself the comfort. "So what happened this morning?"

"Nothing," she admits, completely honestly. "He didn't bring up last night, or even that he'd put in that stupid transfer request. He's probably waiting for it to go through before he says anything, just to make sure things aren't awkward if it doesn't."

It makes a lot of terrible sense when she says it out loud, but Mary Margaret doesn't seem convinced. "That doesn't seem like him, though. Killian wouldn't sneak around like that – he's almost as bad about facing things head-on as you are."

"Well, apparently he did," Emma says, ignoring the sting of that comparison. "I can't think of any other reason why he'd want to avoid talking about what happened."

There's a silence as the truth in her words sinks in, for her as much as for her audience. It's a difficult reality to swallow, to force down with all the strength it takes to will her eyes to stop burning – but once she finally manages it, she doesn't feel satisfied so much as tired. The celebratory rum and two matching glasses seem like so long ago, and her heart twists with such painful longing for that easy warmth that it nearly discards all of the effort she'd put into determinedly _not_ breaking.

Finally, Mary Margaret sighs, long and slow.

"I don't know what Killian's thinking right now," she says, her voice quiet through the din of the park, "but I do know he cares about you. Romantically or not, he always has."

Emma's throat tightens. _I don't regret it._ She remembers the way he'd looked at her that first day, the morning after – steely with the remnants of their argument, of her blatant refusal to trust him, but still carrying the undercurrent of the gaze that had allowed him to take her home – and despite sharing more than she'd intended to when they'd left Storybrooke, she's more than a little glad Mary Margaret still isn't aware of the entire story.

"Yeah," she replies. She fixes her gaze to the ground. "I thought he did, too."

* * *

In the end, she's pretty sure they leave the park with neither of their goals accomplished: hers to assuage Mary Margaret's concern, Mary Margaret's to make sure she's okay. Quite frankly, Emma returns to her cubicle shakier than she'd left it – not rattled, per se, but light-headed and tremulous, as though she's consumed a tad too much sugar and it's overstimulated her already exhausted brain. She's not sure if the scone is entirely at fault for that.

In the interest of giving her a way out, Mary Margaret, bless her heart, had offered to process the transfer request, despite the consequences it would probably rain down on all of them. Needless to say, Emma had turned that down with more than a little mortification. The entire firm might be aware of her friend's very public relationship with Family Law's Prince Charming (and, more relevantly, how thoroughly it invalidates any sort of anti-fraternization rules among coworkers, which throws that unspoken explanation into the trash), but Emma's not too keen on anyone, least of all their managing partner, knowing about anything that's happened between her and Killian.

Especially when the one person who does know seems to be treating this with a great deal more positivity than she thinks should be warranted, given the situation.

"I'm proud of you, Emma," Mary Margaret had said as they headed back to Storybrooke at the end of their walk. She'd given her a small smile, tinged at the edges with pity. "Even if it turned out like this, I'm glad you took the chance to open your heart."

(Emma thinks there might be a _finally_ hidden in there somewhere. Mary Margaret is one of the three people she's told about Portland, and Ruby, the last of that three, has been painfully effective in infecting the rest of their friends with her wildly theoretical suspicions about Emma's love life – minus the man in question, thank god.)

(Honestly, it isn't her fault she spends so much time with Killian. They do work together, after all.)

(Well, _used_ to spend so much time with Killian. For all she's seen him lately, they may not be working together anymore, either.)

So, really, Emma's pretty sure the consolation of _opening her heart_ falls flat when countered with the new changes it brings to the office, because if she thought things would get better after a good (restless) night's sleep, or the morning after that, she'd have been absolutely wrong.

And, sure enough, the days begin to trickle by with no reprieve in sight – though it's not like she's helping things along in any way, either.

Where she had once trekked the bend between the associates and partners wings more often than she could count, she now makes one single trip per day, precisely when she knows he won't be around, to deposit her work on Smee's desk. Likewise, every morning, she comes in to a new stack of files, and she's torn between irritation and relief at the fact that she knows exactly what to do without the need for instructions – it's just another reminder of the system they've built, but she also doesn't want to deal with more of his perfect script than necessary when just the sight of it makes her sick.

It's ridiculous, she knows. She shouldn't be letting herself get this affected by something so stupid – even more, she should know better. Her heart shouldn't sink every time she sees his name, more often than not accompanied by hers, at the top of each page she reviews. The prospect of seeing his face shouldn't feel worse, filling her with a dread that keeps her from commandeering all of his meetings like she'd only just been doing (and maybe this only means she's finally filling her associate position properly, but hell if it isn't excruciatingly dull).

The most horrible thing about it all, though, is that she shouldn't _miss_ it. She shouldn't miss _him_ , and his bright smile, and his good-natured teasing, and the way her blood warms when he laughs.

Because, instead, she should be angry. No, she should be pissed as _hell_ at him, because after everything they've been though, this shit should not be allowed to fly. She knows that she deserves so much more of an explanation than this, than _nothing_. Even if she's gotten his message, even if he knows it, the decent thing to do would still be to tell her, to talk to her, but it seems like he's intent on keeping as far a distance from her as she is from him.

That, of course, brings the resentment on full-force – only with herself this time, because, after all, there's nothing stopping her from simply striding into his office and making him give her all of the answers she doesn't want, instead of taking such carefully measured steps to avoid her boss at all costs.

(Well, maybe the changes aren't that new, after all.)

The one time she does run into him, quite literally, is by chance. It also reaffirms the validity of every decision she's made in the last three weeks in the interest of maintaining radio silence, because what happens when that radio silence is broken is exactly what she'd been fearing all along.

She's on her way back from the restroom, heading straight down the short stretch that will lead her back to the associates wing, when she all but crashes right into a distinctly firm object turning the corner in the opposite direction. Call her paranoid, but even as the shock jolts through her system, so does a flash of premonition that, as bad luck would have it, turns out to be the worst kind of spot-on.

" _Ow_ , shit—"

"Bloody—"

The impact isn't quite enough to knock her flat on her ass, but it does cause her to stumble backwards dangerously until a sturdy hand latches onto her arm to steady her. Sure enough, the realization of to whom that hand belongs has what little breath she has left sticking in her lungs once she registers the faint but unmistakable scent of spice that trickles through her senses, and even with her feet planted firmly on the ground, the world seems to make another powerful lurch. She almost doesn't want to look up.

Of course, no matter how reluctantly, she does.

Looking none the worse for wear, as always, Killian seems to be less thrown by their little collision than bewildered by the mere sight of her, despite the fact that the firm isn't quite large enough for a chance encounter between two people who work on the same floor to be completely out of the question. His blue eyes stretch wide with disbelief, but that doesn't explain the dark tint that colors his skin just under them, something she doesn't remember being there before.

"Swan," he says, almost as an exhale, and his voice pitches at the end as though in question, as though she might actually be someone else.

Her gaze sweeps lower, and she notes the splash of pink on his cheeks, the way his lips fall open as he regards her with no small stupefaction. She, too, feels the back of her neck prickle with heat. "I…" Seeing him here, with no warning or time to steel herself, leaves her at a loss for all of the words she should be saying instead of standing locked in place, staring at him as though she's just seen a ghost.

(But for all that he's vanished from her life, she wouldn't be able to tell by the way her blood starts to quietly hum to life in her veins, like it always does whenever he's near. Pretending not to notice seems harder than usual when her bodily functions are already this muddled.)

After what feels like far too long, though it probably isn't more than a few seconds, she settles for the one word that comes to mind: a single small, coughed-out, "Sorry."

That seems to snap him back to attention. "Don't be," he says quickly, snatching his hand back from her arm as if burned. She hadn't even noticed he'd neglected to release her in the first place. "The fault was mine."

She couldn't have asked for a better opening. _Damn right it is_ , is what she wants to tell him, but just the thought of it has her chest squeezing so painfully that she shuts her mouth instead. She closes her eyes, then fixes them on the fucking corner that had started this mess, almost wishing he hadn't let go at all. "It's fine," she mutters, infuriated with herself beyond belief. There had been nothing in his stare that she could discern but for the surprise and real apology, which is why she hates how unsteady it makes her all the same.

He clears his throat. "I'm going to…" He seems to make a vague gesture toward the restrooms, which she realizes she's still blocking.

"Right." Shuffling her feet, still refusing to look at him, she backs away just enough to let him pass, though he seems to hesitate a moment before he finally does. It's only after she hears the door swing shut behind her that she lets out the breath she didn't know she'd been holding, a hollow ache wringing her right down to her bones, and she's forced to face the realization that this – whatever (determinedly) unspoken truce that now exists in the space between them – it isn't sustainable.

She knows that she's a big girl who can handle unrequited feelings, even if rejection feels a lot worse than she remembers. What she doesn't think she can handle is the constant reminder of how much she still feels for him when he's so thoroughly broken her trust, and how little she's doing to stop him, make a clean break, and move on. Part of her wonders if she's still clinging into some sort of last shred of hope, as if he might approach her out of the blue armed with a profuse plea for forgiveness and an explanation that doesn't go against everything she thought she'd known about him – but then she remembers the months she spent wasting away in Portland, and her resolve to _fix this_ hardens over the pieces of her heart that whisper not to let go of the one place she's started to think of as home, and the one person who'd been a part of it from the very start.

 _Fix this_. No matter how much she wants it, she's not naïve enough to believe things will go back to the way they were, but she refuses to allow herself to wallow in this limbo, where everything hurts twice as much when she realizes she's doing it alone.

There has to be a way out of this. There _has_ to be. She just needs to take a deep breath, bury her heart, and figure out what it is.

(She wishes she'd never kissed him in the first place.)

* * *

Emma resists the urge to fidget in her chair, which, while certainly plush and luxurious enough for the managing partner's office, has to be the most uncomfortable seat she's ever occupied in her entire life.

Across the wide dark wood desk, Regina Mills seems perfectly content to ignore her, not even a glance upward from the file in her hand even as she'd beckoned Emma inside with the other, despite the fact that she'd sent for her in the first place. The foreboding weighs on Emma's shoulders like a ton of bricks. In all of her time here at Storybrooke, she's never been summoned to the managing partner's office – she's never heard of an associate being summoned to the managing partner's office, unless they were being fired, of course (and with their managing partner's temperament, she'd think it'd happen more often) – so needless to say, she's not exactly looking forward to where this impromptu meeting is going.

(Obviously, there's only one event in recent memory that she can think of possibly meriting that level of severity, but as they say in court: innocent until proven guilty, right?)

Regina lets her squirm for another minute, leisurely flipping through the pages in front of her, before she finally looks up with the same austere expression she always wears, her lips pressed into a harsh line across her face. But, unless Emma's mistaken, she could swear the edges of her mouth are curled as if she's making an effort at cordiality. It reminds her more of a predator trying to conjure a false sense of security.

"Miss Swan," Regina says, tapping a nail against the corner of the folder. The pause she takes before her next words are pregnant with an unease that doesn't exactly go away even after she speaks. "I'm sure I'm not the first, but I'd just like to personally offer you my congratulations on the Crocodile case."

Emma hesitates before replying, carefully. "Thanks." Her wariness that this conversation is about to segue into something a little less flattering overshadows all of the unpleasant thoughts that reminder invokes.

"It was a big win for the firm – for all of the partners involved, and for Storybrooke's reputation," Regina continues, then turns back to the papers on her desk. "Obviously, we had no idea it would become as huge of a deal as it did, at least not when we first brought you in to work on it, or that it would take this long to settle things. But now that it's over, it would be amiss of me not to thank you for all of the hard work I've been informed you put in."

Well, that's new. There's only one person she can think of from whom their managing partner might have gotten this information, even though his name burns on her tongue. "Did Killian tell you that?"

"He did," Regina confirms. "I know Jones took the lead in the trial, but from what I'm hearing, his success was in large due to your contributions."

"Uh." Emma feels as though she may have entered some kind of alternate dimension. She wonders when exactly this exchange happened – it had to have been after they won, but wasn't that very evening the night everything had gone to hell? "I appreciate that, but I'm sure Killian was just being humble. I did what any other associate would have done." The words are familiar in a way that stings with the memory of rum on her lips, but she figures it's the best thing to say in this situation anyway.

"From someone a little more acquainted with the associate pool, I hope you'll trust me when I tell you that you really didn't," Regina says wryly. Emma isn't quite sure how to respond to that, so she waits silently to hear what kind of catch this implied compliment has in store for her – but it never comes. "In fact, I can see that your work with us has been nothing short of excellent since you transferred here to Boston."

With a start, Emma realizes that the file Regina has been reading through – it's _hers_. "How do you…?"

"All partners paired with associates send me reports every other week." Regina glances up at her. "Or have you forgotten?"

"I, uh…" She bites her tongue. "No." Truthfully, this little piece of information had completely flown out of her mind the moment she'd recognized the man standing on the other side of her new partner's door. "I just thought, after working here this long..."

"You thought the assessments would have stopped by now?" Regina finishes, a hint of disdain glinting in her hard gaze. "That they wouldn't be needed anymore once we made sure you got settled and were working hard enough?"

Emma grimaces with the realization that she's just dug herself in even deeper with that lie. "Yes?"

The snort that escapes the woman on the other side of the desk is a stark contrast against her prim stature. "Discipline is not the only reason we have these reports, Miss Swan. Though you do see that new issues start popping up the longer an associate's term stretches, usually of the interpersonal sort, so they become surprisingly useful as time goes on."

 _There it is_. Emma tries to hide how hard it suddenly becomes to swallow. "Right."

Regina seems to take an eternity to flip to the next page, as though she can read her apprehension and is perfectly happy to stretch it out. But in the end, it seems like her distress is for naught when she says, at last: "Fortunately, it doesn't look like we've had to worry about that with you."

Apparently, the managing partner remains blissfully unaware that her performance assessments fail to encompass the entire truth of what goes on in her firm, though Emma won't complain about that. In retrospect, maybe it's ridiculous to think Killian would have spilled every last personal detail of their work relationship to their mutual boss, but her tremulous relief speaks for itself: when it comes to him, she's no longer sure if she can hedge her bets. She wonders what he _had_ been writing about her this entire time.

"I'm aware you've been involved in most, if not all, of Jones's cases," Regina continues, as if reading her mind, "which makes for an impressive caseload for an associate. Several of them have been high profile suits, as well – the Mendells, Camelot, Arendelle, not to mention your most recent win against Robert Gold." She pauses, but Emma doesn't speak, particularly because she has no idea where this is going if not towards a reprimand. "I've also been told that the number of hours you put in every week has been commendable, if not ridiculous. Normally, this wouldn't be an issue, if it weren't for the fact that the number of billables Jones has logged has also grown substantially in the time he's been working with you."

Emma frowns in an attempt to suppress the tiny flare that suddenly ignites in her chest. "Is that a problem?"

"Not necessarily," Regina says. "At first I was concerned that he was spending too much time doing the work he was supposed to be delegating to you, but I couldn't argue against the results the two of you put out. And it seems like working together has helped you become more open to collaboration, too, so I won't argue against that, either."

Emma blinks. "Uh, what?"

Regina shakes her head dismissively. "It's nothing you need to worry about at this point," she assures her, but she must see how unwilling Emma is to let this go, because she relents with a sigh. "Obviously this is no longer a problem, but in his first report, Jones wrote that you were – what were the words he used?" She flips back a few pages. " _Aggressively independent_. _Determined to handle every little detail of every case without help_."

Emma practically feels her mouth fall open, her face heating up, chagrined – she'd only done everything herself because she was so determined to avoid him, and he knew full well the reason for that. Despite her misgivings, she's about to voice her protest when Regina speaks again.

"I got the impression he meant it as a compliment," she allows, to his credit. "But I told him we couldn't have you refusing to work with others, so he offered to try and help you ease into it."

"He _offered_?" Emma says skeptically, before she can help herself. There's no way he'd made that offer before approaching her with the excuse that they had to get used to being around each other. But seeing as he couldn't exactly tell their managing partner the logic behind _that_ , she supposes it's a good a cover as any – even if she's not entirely happy about how it aligns a little too closely with what she's sure were his early opinions of her.

"Really, Miss Swan, it's all moot by now," Regina says with a roll of her eyes. "As long as you've learned to properly cooperate with the other members of your team, I couldn't care less whether or not you spend all of your time here by yourself."

Her heart stops dead in its tracks. "What?"

"Now that I know you have, there isn't any kind of problem," Regina reassures her, but right now, her managing partner's issues are the last thing on Emma's mind.

"No, I—What did you say?" Even as Regina scowls and repeats herself about the importance of proper cooperation, though, Emma knows the exact words she'd used.

 _Here by yourself._

She thinks back to her first night in Boston, escaping the emptiness of her apartment in favor of chasing her lonely thoughts with drink and, apparently, unexpected company. She thinks back to nearly every night since then, camped out in either her cubicle or the library without even a notion of leaving even as the rest of the office cleared out, burning the midnight oil with the pleasure of that same company (though, often, without the pleasure part). It isn't as though she's been avoiding going home – her place has certainly grown on her since then, what with all of the new additions Mary Margaret keeps leaving every time she comes over – but maybe, subconsciously, in the beginning…

He'd known. Somehow, between meeting her at the bar and realizing she'd just moved from the other side of the country, he'd figured her out, and, even if she hadn't liked it, even if it'd been nothing but sitting together in exasperated silence at first – he hadn't wanted her to be alone.

The thought swells up in her throat like a tight, hot balloon.

 _Damn him_.

"Miss Swan?" Regina's voice is especially jarring when it holds more than its usual level of aggravation, and Emma snaps out of her thoughts with a start. She blinks a few times, unnerved to find that she actually needs it to clear her blurry vision.

"Sorry, what?" She sounds hoarse, as though she's run through the desert for miles without water, but Regina just sighs.

"Don't make me regret this decision already."

Emma squeezes her eyes shut, gives herself the space of one long breath before she opens them again. Her mind might be scrambling to reassemble its pieces, but even in her confounded state, she doesn't think she's as far gone to be this lost about what she's referring to. "What decision?"

"I didn't bring you in here to review your assessments in front of you for no reason," Regina says dryly. "And I hope you didn't think I'd have called for you just to give you my compliments on the Crocodile case."

The thought that she really is being fired flashes through her head for one absurd second, but even as she dismisses it, she finds herself faltering. "So, what exactly…?"

"Miss Swan, how would you finally like that partner position after all?"

* * *

A promotion was the last thing on Emma's mind when she'd walked into the managing partner's office yesterday afternoon.

Now, it's the only thing she can think of as she sits in her soon-to-be ex-partner's, alone, which gives her plenty of room for her irritation that said soon-to-be ex-partner is nowhere in sight twenty minutes after he should have been meeting her.

She can't say she's entirely surprised, given the circumstances of their relationship lately, but she thinks that should make an actual request to talk all the more serious of a commitment. Well – okay, so she hadn't _entirely_ been candid about the situation, too afraid that an open-ended request would end in him brushing her off (how do you even hint at something like _making partner_ – full partnership, unlike what she had in Portland, which is _huge_ – over email?), instead embellishing some tale about needing certain files, which _was_ the truth, to the point that Smee hadn't a chance in hell of following through, or even understanding what she was talking about in the first place.

And so, Killian had reluctantly (or so she imagined) promised Smee he would be present to deal with the files she'd asked for at precisely ten o'clock the next morning.

Needless to say, as ten thirty rolls around, Emma's more than a little pissed.

Forget about whatever's going on between them in their personal lives – this is something kind of important. Until the formal announcement, Regina had forbidden her from telling anyone who wasn't absolutely essential. Naturally this meant Mary Margaret and Ruby were at the top of the list, which now probably means David and Victor know about it, too. (Demands for instant celebration had to be sternly warded off by the reminder of the two days remaining in the work week, but she'd relented to the ominous pledge of _soon_.) She'd thought Killian might make the number one spot, not just because he's her partner but also just because he's _him_ … but it now seems like he's actually hell-bent on _not_ hearing the news, despite the fact that it's more relevant to him than to anyone else.

Finally, after all this time, they won't be working together anymore. She knows this is exactly what she'd wanted, and there was no way she could have declined the offer, but still, a part of her feels wistful, like she's about to close the door on this chapter of her life he'd been such a big part of. Once she leaves the position as his associate, she won't have any real reason to see him anymore – she's under no illusions about how purposely their cases will not intersect when she starts getting her own – and all of this, everything they've been, will have been formally put behind them.

( _Sentimental_. She hates it, but that's exactly what she is in this moment.)

(And maybe she's a little stupid, too, for wanting to use this last chance to clear the air, but she couldn't help grabbing the folder she still hasn't shredded on her way out of her cubicle. Whether or not she actually uses it depends on how much nerve she loses at the sight of him.)

In any case, nothing's official until she signs on the dotted line, which means the partnership offer is still technically up in the air for all of the things she might manage to screw up in the meantime. And, unless Killian fucking Jones shows up sometime soon to give her the files she really does need, she's about to miss a client call on top of being woefully unprepared for a meeting with some of their Crocodile case plaintiffs, all less than twenty-four hours after that offer had been made.

Ten thirty-five. She might actually kill him.

Pocketing her phone, which has started to protest its rapidly depleted battery over the past half-hour, she gets to her feet and turns to the row of file cabinets that lines the wall next to his desk with a huff. She isn't an expert on excavating this particular area of his office, where the older documents on his active cases are stored before they move to the Storybrooke file room, but he keeps everything organized enough that she has no qualms about finding what she's looking for. Just for safe keeping, she wedges the folder she'd brought with her under a model ship adorning cabinet number one before she rolls up her sleeves and gets to work.

Three drawers later, she finally thinks she's located all of the folders pertaining to the suit against Robert Gold, but there certainly is a lot more than she'd expected – a year's worth of documents, she remembers with a grimace. A lot of it she actually recalls typing out, though she refuses to get nostalgic over something as silly as pieces of paper, no matter how much less complicated her life had been back when they'd worked this ridiculous case.

(Counterintuitive? Sure. Sad? Maybe.)

She starts sifting through the folders at the back of the drawer, assuming they're catalogued chronologically, but she's barely through the first few before something catches her eye the moment her finger runs across the creased tab.

 _Swan._

She freezes. Before she can overthink it, her thumb smooths out of the rest of the flap, and sure enough – the full label spells out _Emma Swan_ in neatly typed print. Her mind goes blank. A folder bearing her name should not be crammed in a drawer full of Crocodile case files.

Willing her hands not to shake, she slides the thin manila folder from its place, and her heart sinks when she sees the crumpled rainbow sticky hanging onto its cover for dear life. She doesn't want to open it. _God_ , this has to be some kind of joke.

In the top right corner of the very first page sits the headshot she's used for her Storybrooke ID card ever since she first started working as a lawyer in Portland.

"Emma, I'm so sorry, my—what are you doing?"

She nearly jumps a foot off the ground from the voice that comes from behind her. The shock jolts her system into overdrive, but it takes just a second of readjustment for her blood to start pounding for an entirely different reason.

"What the hell is this?" Standing slowly, feeling particularly unsteady in her heels, she turns around to where Killian stands in the doorway, his dark brows furrowed at the open folder she brandishes at him like a weapon.

"What is…?" He trails off as he seems to register exactly what she's holding in her hand, and then his face goes entirely white. "Emma, that's—"

"It's a file on me," she says, surprised at how calm her voice sounds through the utter indignation that simmers under her skin. "From HR. The kind you get right before an employee starts working at a new place."

Even though he clearly already knows that, it seems to take him a moment to process her words. He takes a step forward, his eyes finally tearing from the folder back to look at her. "You found that in here?"

"Do you even have to ask?"

He blinks, and his head shakes infinitesimally, almost an unconscious gesture, his expression slipping into one of horror. "Emma, love, you have to believe me—"

" _Don't_ ," she all but snarls, though she's not sure if her reaction is born from his attempt at a protest or from his audacity to try to use that goddamn endearment at a time like this. " _Don't_ say you didn't know about this. It was _sitting in your file cabinet_."

Killian's gaze is pleading, and she'd be lying if she said it didn't break her heart, but at the moment, she's frankly too livid to care. "It may have been in the file cabinet, but I _swear_ I've never seen it in my life. Smee must have—"

"Don't you dare put this on Smee," she snaps. "You knew who I was when we met. You knew who I was when we slept together the night before I was supposed to start working for you."

"I didn't," he insists, and again, it looks like even the insinuation has him appalled. Pity that, this time, the evidence is stacked against him so thoroughly she can't even begin to consider the honesty that brings to his words. "Emma, please, you know I didn't."

"How the hell am I supposed to know that?"

"Because you know me."

He says it with all the certainty he never could have used with that defense a year ago, when they'd first met for the second time and she'd accused him of the exact same thing – every fiber of his being seems to scream with the truth of it, of everything she's come to know about that stranger in the bar. Of late nights in the office and take-out dinners, and of arguing over things they could have finished hours ago had one of them relented and remembered to breathe. Of not arguing over things and scrambling to meet deadlines and midnight snacks from the vending machine. Of quiet reassurances. Of smiles that make her mouth twist without her realizing it until he's already gone, and then realizing in equal measure that she doesn't want him to be. She especially finds it hard to look him in the eye when she sees it all there more clearly than she ever had before.

 _You know me_.

It's the wrong thing to say. She presses her lips together as tightly as she can, grasping at the strands of her rightful anger even as it wavers with how much she wishes it were true. She wants, more than anything, to be able to dwell in the incredulity of it all rather than doubt him so sorely like this, to maybe laugh it off with him as just another silly clerical mistake courtesy of their poor secretary – to _believe_ him, as much as she knows she shouldn't. Because she _can't_.

She doesn't.

 _God_. So much for that fucking emotional trust.

"You and I both know full well that's a lie," she tells him in a quiet voice. The opening he's left her makes it painfully obvious what she has to do. She turns to where the file she'd brought with her is perched atop the cabinet, snatches it down, and then faces him again with both folders in hand. "By the way, just thought I should let you know: the transfer request you put in didn't go through."

She can't look at him as she slams them both onto his desk with her palm, as she storms past him, out the door, and into the freedom of the hallway. Her fists are clenched so tightly she's not sure if that's the reason she can't feel her fingers, or if it's because she can't feel anything but how hard she's shaking with the effort of trying not to cry.


	6. Chapter 6

Author's Note: One more chapter to go; this story's not over yet! ;)

* * *

 **Guilty, Your Honor**

 _Chapter 6_

It's the perfect summer day, the kind Emma had always loved as a child.

Growing up in the north, she'd always spent too much time trapped indoors by incessantly frigid weather, crammed in tiny bedrooms that were probably in violation of more than one fire code and trying in vain not to catch the next kid's miserable cough. Come spring, and then summer once the school term ended, she'd relish in soaking up the sun and spending as much time outside as possible before they'd inevitably shut her back up. In the rare instances she'd been lucky enough to live near the ocean, she'd always dip her toes into the edge of the water and stare out at the horizon, marveling in how much open space there really was in the world when she actually had the freedom to explore it.

Turns out: the Boston skyline has much the same effect, made even better, in theory at least, with a cool drink in her hand and the smell of charcoal smoke tinting the city air. The rooftop patio area of Mary Margaret and David's building boasts some of the most stunning views she's ever seen, and, were she actually paying them any attention, she'd probably wish again that her landlord wasn't such a stickler about sneaking onto the roof of her complex.

But for all the charms of the most picturesque afternoon Emma's had in a while, she finds herself staring at the edge of the brick wall that lines the perimeter of the rooftop, her mind in an entirely different place.

"So _serious_."

A voice startles her back into the present, where an ice cold bottle is being prodded against her bare leg. She recoils, glaring up at Ruby's smirk with fond exasperation.

"What? I already have a drink."

"From the look on your face, it doesn't seem like that one's strong enough."

Emma snorts. "It's lemonade. And I'm good."

Ruby nudges her, and she scoots over to make some room on the stone ledge, even though there's a perfectly good amount of space on her other side. The patio greenery tickles her shoulders as she leans back to gauge which of her friend's moods she has to prepare herself for today.

Narrowed eyes and a pursed red mouth. That's not good.

"Are you having fun?"

"Of course I am," she answers, frowning.

"Really?" The way Ruby says it is a telltale sign that she's not about to be convinced, at least by anything short of a miracle. "Then why are you sitting here by yourself?"

Emma glances around the wide space, which is more crowded than she's ever seen it. She hadn't expected them to invite quite so many people to this party – on paper, supposedly, it's to commemorate her one-year anniversary at Storybrooke here in Boston, but for the handful of people who already know, they're here to celebrate her shiny new promotion ( _in secret!_ Mary Margaret had insisted, looking far too giddy about keeping things under wraps for Emma not to be worried). She'd been even more surprised to see how many of them had actually shown up.

Just with a first pass, she spots Marco and Archie, Ashley with her husband Sean and their daughter Alex, who has a throng of cooing admirers she thinks might be an expecting Kathryn and Fredrick from behind; Belle and Ariel deep in conversation next to the drinks, where Eric seems unable to stop staring, along with Victor, August, and Jefferson; Tink, of all people, arguing with David over the grill they'd carried up to the roof. She'd even seen Granny flitting around, apparently not too offended that her catering services had not been needed to come say hello, plus an unexpected smattering of some of the clients with whom she'd kept in touch: Elsa and Anna Arendelle, Anna's husband Kristoff, and Mulan and Aurora with their tiny baby boy Phillip.

The fact that she can name all of these people from the office is astonishing, and that they've come for _her_ , to celebrate her working with them for a year now, makes Emma more than a little touched.

She just doesn't have the energy, or the heart, to show it for more than the space of an appreciative greeting right now.

"I just sat down," she says, which isn't technically a lie. She just leaves out the part where, probably a good five minutes ago, she'd waved off Tink and her tendency to ambush her with incessant, albeit thoughtfully discreet, apologies about a time long past. (She really doesn't hold any ill will towards the poor girl at all, as Tink couldn't have possibly known what she was getting herself into that night. Apparently neither had she.)

"You shouldn't be sitting at all," Ruby insists, even though they've brought up a slew of lawn chairs for that exact purpose. "You should be mingling. This party is for you."

Emma hesitates, then sighs. "You're right. Sorry."

For some reason, this doesn't seem to be the right response, given how Ruby's dark eyes narrow further. She studies Emma for a second, then asks, "What's going on with you?"

"What do you mean?"

"That was far too easy."

"I mean, you guys put so much work into organizing this," Emma says. "I just don't want to waste your effort."

"You're right, but you're also deflecting," Ruby replies bluntly. "Which means you have something to hide."

 _Damn_ Ruby's sharp. Emma bites the inside of her cheek. "And what exactly would I be trying to keep from you?"

"How about the reason you've been staring at the wall like you've just seen a puppy get kicked?"

She resists a snort. "I was just spacing out," she says, even though she knows it's futile.

"Really?" Ruby deadpans. She clinks a nail against the bottle in her hand, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees. "This wouldn't have anything to do with your boyfriend not being here, would it?"

"My boyfriend?" Emma groans and leans away. "Killian?"

"You said it, not me."

"Because you've been _so_ subtle about it."

This is pretty high on the list of things Emma doesn't want to talk about right now, but with all of the people who _had_ shown up, Killian's absence, as her boss, as their (herself not included) friend, is markedly noticeable.

(She's never spent any time with him outside of work-related events, despite all of their mutual friendships – every time an invitation had come to hang out in a group, save for the Blanchard-Nolan holiday party for which he'd blessedly been away on business, Emma had always declined on instinct as soon as his name came up. Unfortunately for David, that meant he'd never gotten her out for drinks with the two of them after all, as she'd convinced herself they spent enough time together at the office that she really didn't need to see Killian's stupidly handsome face anywhere else. Besides, more often than not, she had a good work-related excuse for bailing, which meant she'd usually see him before the night was up, anyway.)

(He'd always skip out on the fun to come help her. No matter the time or whatever he'd been doing, he'd always make sure she didn't have to be alone.)

" _You_ , on the other hand," Ruby seems to be saying from somewhere far away, and Emma blinks back to attention just in time to see her signature knowing look, "couldn't be less subtle if you tried."

She shakes her head to clear it. "What are you talking about?"

"You're upset he's not here. Admit it: you were just thinking about him right now." Emma intends to do no such thing, even though her thoughts were probably way off from what Ruby's imagining. But before she can come up with a suitable response, her friend adds, "Where _is_ Killian, by the way?"

This lie, at least, has been practiced. "He's busy," she says. "Some clients are forcing him to go out-of-town for a meeting."

Ruby cocks her head for a moment, and then her gaze darts over Emma's shoulder. "Mary Margaret!"

 _Shit_. The woman in question comes into view bearing a large bowl of fruit salad that is clearly meant for the food table. Unfortunately, she's not about to make it that far, and it looks like this might be the end of the line for Emma, too: her friend has been extraordinarily, thankfully, tight-lipped thus far about the situation, which hasn't been brought up since their walk save for a few uneventful status updates, but she's never fared too well under direct scrutiny (the kind Emma can only assume her husband had not applied, or she would have definitely heard about it by now).

Sure enough, Mary Margaret looks vaguely startled when Ruby asks, "Didn't David make sure Killian would be free today?"

"I… I think so," she replies. Just that single glance she shoots towards Emma has her certain she's doomed. "Why?"

"The trip was a last minute thing," Emma clarifies quickly, hoping that'll be enough of an explanation for the both of them.

Lo and behold – it isn't.

"On a Saturday?" Ruby demands, at the same time as Mary Margaret asks, "What trip?" Maybe she should have come up with a better excuse for why Killian hadn't shown up on an invitation he'd specifically not received. More importantly, maybe she should have clued Mary Margaret in on it ahead of time.

"Something's going on with the two of you, isn't there?" Ruby continues, her stare growing sharper by the second. "There's no way Killian would have missed this party for some stupid work thing. And I haven't seen you guys together in ages."

 _A month_. That seems like forever to Emma, too. "Nothing's going on," she tries, but then Ruby turns to Mary Margaret.

"I'm not crazy, right? You see it, too?"

Mary Margaret looks like she wants nothing more than to escape to the food table with the hilariously huge bowl she's still holding. "Uh, no? Not really."

Her forehead wrinkling, Ruby blinks once in what seems like slow motion, before her mouth falls open with indignation. " _You know_! You know what's going on here, don't you?" She turns back to Emma, who is finding it hard to contain what she's sure is a guilty expression. "What the hell are you guys keeping from me?"

"Rubes…" Her intent really hadn't been to purposely leave out one of her two closest friends, like they've been conspiring to keep her out of the loop; that's just the way it happened, what with Mary Margaret being witness to her initial shock that first day. Emma's still not sure how she could have brought up something like that out of the blue even if she hadn't spent so much time trying not to think about it.

Right now, though – maybe it's testament to how much she needs it, but she doesn't know why she's trying so hard to pretend like she's fine, why she's forcing herself to dwell in her heartache alone when there are two people who have made it abundantly clear just how much they actually want to share in that part her life. In every part in her life.

She wishes she'd told them, both of them, sooner.

"I slept with him."

She's not sure whose reaction to witness first, but she hears the uproar quite well in stereo. " _What_?"

"Wait," Ruby continues, twisting to face Mary Margaret. "You didn't know?"

"I thought you'd just kissed him," Mary Margaret says breathlessly.

"This, er, happened before that. It actually happened before we properly met."

"What the fuck?" Ruby demands, and, okay, Emma can't exactly blame her. What she can do is shush her loudly, too aware that, despite the size of the patio, they're still in a pretty public space.

What she can also do is corral them into a corner of the roof, where they have almost no chance of being heard over the music and conversation and city noise, and tell them the entire story, from the beginning.

She leaves no part out – from the night they'd met and she'd gone home with him, to the morning after, when she'd accused him of the worst and walked out fully expecting to never look back. To the rainbow sticky-adorned folder on her desk making it so _that_ didn't happen. To her plans to avoid him, foiled by his insistence that they work together in the interest of unlearning the awkwardness that had come with their situation. To her realization that this had not been his intention at all, which had come too late after everything changed for the worse, and then, finally, to the awful discovery she'd made in his office, after which she'd neither seen nor heard from him once, though she's thought about it nearly nonstop since.

She's thought about _him_ nearly nonstop since. And she can't put into words how much she hates it, because even though she'd skipped over nearly all of the parts where it'd actually happened – she only barely touches on how she'd shared her history, how he'd understood in a way she couldn't fully comprehend until he confessed his own ghosts – speaking through her feelings now have done nothing but illuminate how ridiculously, stupidly, and thoroughly she thinks she might have somehow fallen in love with him.

Apparently, that fact is pretty obvious to anyone with eyes – according to Ruby, at least, once Emma comes to a full, relieved stop. After all this time, letting the secret go is like a breath of clean air into the crevices of her heart where she'd kept it hidden, safe, and not even Ruby's smug satisfaction can take that away.

"You still love him, don't you?" Mary Margaret asks, once all of the flaunting is finished (she, too, had participated in it, though to a calmer extent – honestly, her small, knowing smile was worse).

"I…" Emma grimaces, unable to wrap her mouth around the right words, or her head, for that matter. She diverts her gaze to the ground and sighs. "I don't know. I shouldn't. I'm not even sure who he is."

"Because of the file you found?"

"Because of _everything_. He's been lying to me this entire time, and I believed him."

There's a short silence, and the one of Ruby's stilettos nudges her ankle carefully. "Do you really think he'd do that? Take advantage of you just to see you squirm?"

When she puts it like that, there's no way Emma can reconcile that kind of repulsiveness with the image of Killian she's had in her mind, even from the start. "I didn't think he'd kiss me back and then hang me out to dry, either," she says flatly. "Maybe I just really don't know him at all."

She nearly expects them to protest, to rally in defense of someone they've known for much longer than she has – but they don't. It might just be because the excuses they could make for him are far and few between, though she suspects that's not the reason Ruby says, eventually:

"So do we kill him? Victor can probably get us something from the hospital that'll make it look like an accident."

Emma snorts out a laugh, surprised at how unfamiliar it feels on impulse. Mary Margaret, on the other hand, seems slightly less amused. "Of course we don't kill him! Should I talk to him? Or do you want me to send David in for recon?"

"No, no," she shakes her head, though gratitude flickers through her all the same. "I don't want any more to do with him than I absolutely need to have. Once we stop working together, it'll be like this year never happened, and I won't have to deal with him ever again."

When she looks up, she sees a glance pass between her friends that isn't particularly difficult to read. "Is that really what you want, Emma?" Mary Margaret asks, hand moving to cover Emma's knee like she can feel just how hard she's about to lie.

(She shouldn't _have_ to lie, and she doesn't want to, especially now that the truth finally has come out. But she doesn't know what else to do when she's the one who needs the brave face more than anything else.)

"It's like ripping off a bandaid, right?" Emma replies with a weak smile. She hopes that she thinks it forcefully enough, she might eventually convince herself. "It won't hurt like a bitch forever."

* * *

"So you understand the terms of your new contract? I trust you went through it with the fine-toothed comb that will now be even more expected of you."

Emma stares at the pile of papers stacked in front of her, all of its rows and rows of typed black print. She'd only glanced through it, actually – it's the same contract used for every rising partner, so there's no way she could have attempted negotiation even if she'd found anything to change – but Regina doesn't need to know that.

"Looks fine to me," she says quietly.

"After you sign, we'll be able to get all the more complicated details organized," Regina explains, "your move out of the associates wing, for one, and how you'll be transferring your work to Jones's new associate. We'll be announcing your new status at the partners meeting on Friday—"

"Wait," Emma interrupts her, a probably unwise decision. "What?"

She wouldn't be surprised if Regina thinks she has some sort of hearing problem at this point. "Partners meetings are every Friday morning at 8am," she says, her mouth a hard line across her face. "If you're worried about your ability to get a head start on the weekend, I'm sorry to say that may mean you aren't fit for partnership after all."

Emma ignores all of that irrelevant information completely. "Killian is getting a new associate?"

"I don't see why he wouldn't," Regina replies as she folds her hands on her desk in what is surely an act of summoning patience. "Despite his improved work ethic, he's still in charge of far too many cases to handle on his own. Even if he no longer needs the extra help with the Crocodile trial now that it's over, he'll still need a hand with finishing what's left on his plate before he goes back to a normal caseload. But usually we see that, once a partner gets used to working with an associate, they won't want to stop, and we choose another candidate from the pool to make replacements as necessary." She raises an eyebrow. "You may learn that firsthand soon enough, Miss Swan."

 _Killian with a new associate_. She hadn't even considered she'd be getting replaced once she moved on. If the way he works with all of his associates is the same as how he'd worked with her – she imagines him sitting in the library, letting a faceless, but still somehow attractive, woman steal the last of his onion rings as they worked late into the night, and she has to swallow the lump in her throat – she's…

Well, she's not going to do anything about it. She's about to sign away her right to do just that right now.

"That's – yeah," Emma says feebly, crushing the fabric of her skirt in her palms, as if it'll help. It definitely doesn't.

"Of course, you won't have to worry about that for a while. Partners aren't awarded that luxury until they've been properly acclimated – Jones was actually the last partner promoted in the firm, and he had to wait months before we assigned him with you."

Emma's heart twists at hearing just how innocuous that fateful decision really was. She thinks about how Killian was the last person to sit here in her position, which – she knew he was young for a partner, as is she, to be honest, but she hadn't considered what that had meant in terms of his own promotion. Nothing comes to mind but a small, plaintive, "Oh."

Across the desk, Regina shifts in her chair as she seems to uncross and re-cross her legs, her gaze suddenly one of scrutiny. She places a perfectly manicured hand on top of the contract that lies in the same place she'd put it when Emma had first walked in.

"It's fine to be having second thoughts," she says, her voice soft in a way that is almost kind. "This is a big step, a huge jump in responsibility. Some people can't handle the pressure and the stress, so if you feel like you aren't ready…" She trails off, and Emma realizes with a dull start that she's giving her a way out.

No one _refuses_ partnership – that's just crazy. Even if she were one to be worried about the workload, which is apparently the (embarrassing) impression Regina is under, she would never in a million years hesitate to sign her associate rank away. It's just that…

This is really it. The end of working with Killian Jones, her partner. All legal hierarchy aside, she really had considered him something of the sort, and even with all of the shit that's happened between them – no matter how much she hates him right now, and no matter how much she still feels for him all the same – she doesn't think that will ever change. Maybe that makes this all the more pathetic, this reminiscing. Whatever kind of team they'd made is over, officially in the past.

He'll get a new associate. She'll move up from her tiny cubicle, and maybe one day they'll be strangers again, no different from any other patron of a quiet bar in downtown Boston the night before starting a new job.

She takes a deep breath, fixes her gaze on the contract in front of her.

"Where do I sign?"

* * *

It's past midnight now, and the bright overhead fluorescents feel like overkill when she's not exactly still at work for business reasons. Instead, she keeps on the desk light and a small lamp that had been left behind by the office's – _her_ office's – previous occupant, the only thing that currently inhabits the wooden bookcase resting against the wall. Along with the fluorescents from the hallway, it's more than enough light for her to dig through the box holding all of her cubicle's effects, but it's still subtle enough to keep the atmosphere of sentimentality alive.

Packing and unpacking has always brought that out in her – probably because she'd always had to predict whether it was worth giving her things a proper place before she'd have to gather it all back up again.

She's not going anywhere this time.

"Were you ever going to tell me?"

She nearly jumps at the sound of his voice – nearly, but not quite, because she knows this has been a long time coming. Still, that doesn't prepare her for how cold and flat he sounds in a way that is nearly unrecognizable from what she remembers. When she turns slowly, nestling her diploma back into the box between her potted plant and a bundle of files in what seems like a very familiar stalling maneuver, she sees that, contrary to his voice, his eyes are bright, churning, furious – and rightfully so.

"Close the door. Please," she says quietly. If experience has taught her anything, it's not to assume they're the only two left in the office, and she's pretty sure she doesn't want whatever's about to explode echoing down the halls for everyone to hear. He complies, though something tells her it's not going to make much of a difference anyway, as she straightens up to her full height, steeling herself for the worst.

"When were you going to tell me?" he asks finally when he faces her again, but this time he sounds more hurt than angry, his voice still low, his jaw still clenched. "When I walked by your cubicle and noticed it empty? When I passed by here and saw your bloody name on the door?"

"Killian—"

"No, _don't_. I had to find out through _David_ , Emma. I had to find out from a partner in _another division_ that my associate had suddenly made partner, and I had absolutely no clue."

Heat burns low in her belly, because he has no right acting like this is all her fault. "I've already signed on, so it's not exactly a secret," she tells him derisively. "It just happened a few days ago, and Regina said she would talk to you to work things out. Or you would have found out at the partners meeting on Friday, anyway."

"That's not the point," he says sharply. "I should have found out from _you_."

"You of all people can't seriously be telling me that."

She really hadn't wanted to get into this right now, but her satisfaction at the way he flinches is worth it – a crack in his indignation, in his self-righteous scorn. Of all the reasons she'd ever wanted to see him so on edge, his hair run-through and his tie askew under his unbuttoned collar, she never could have imagined this would someday be one of them. "This is about the job we have to do," he finally says, looking as though he's struggling to keep his voice even. "I'm your boss, and I deserved to know."

There are so many ways she can use that opening; she takes the one that stings the most. "You're my boss," she echoes in a monotone. "That's the only reason."

He hesitates, then seems to grit his teeth before he responds. "What other reason would there be?"

"How about the entire year we've been working together? How about the time you were convinced that I should have been a partner – and now I am?"

"Congratulations, Swan," he says flatly.

"Don't give me that bullshit," she snaps. "We both know you're a fucking liar, anyway. I don't want to hear you say things you don't mean."

At this, his lips tighten, and she really does think he's going to punch back – damn it, she _wants_ him to punch back; she _wants_ him to try to convince her otherwise – before he shakes his head, turning away. "I knew this was a bad idea. I should have known—"

" _No_ ," she says fiercely, taking three long strides forward to catch his arm before he can reach the door. "No. You came here to get answers, so let's talk."

It's more difficult to swallow his hard expression up-close when he faces her – not even the dim glow of the lights can disguise the firm line of his mouth, the hollow look in his eyes. From this distance, the dark circles under them seem even more prominent, though she forces her gaze back up when she realizes she's searching that expression for something to hold onto.

" _Why_?" he demands. "Why does it matter? We won't be working together anymore either way, and it isn't like anything I do will make you believe me."

" _Why does it matter_?" she repeats with incredulity. She releases his arm and instead jabs him in the chest with a finger. "You _know_ why it matters, because as much as you enjoy pretending like it didn't happen, it did."

"Emma, I don't want to talk—"

"I _kissed_ you!" she blurts, as much as it pains her to say it out loud, and it feels like she's spitting the words at him with the weight of everything that's been festering in her chest for the last month – for longer than that, if she's being honest, from the moment she realized she might be falling for him and there was nothing she could do to stop it. "I kissed you, and you kissed me back, and then I had to come in the next morning and find out that you didn't want any more to do with me." Her heart pounding, she glares up with him with all the force she can muster. "You didn't even have the decency to tell me yourself – though at this point, I guess I shouldn't be surprised."

"I—" His blue eyes flash dangerously. He looks like he's about to walk away again, and he very well still could – but then he hikes his chin up and plants his feet right where he is. There's a new determination on his face, no doubt born from finally hearing what she should have said a long time ago. "I was going to tell you," he says in a quiet voice. "I was going to bloody well apologize for it before you went and confirmed all the reasons I put in that transfer request in the first place."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You might be fine with that kiss not meaning anything, but I'm not. Do you know how it felt the next morning – to see your face and have to go along with acting like nothing happened?"

She has no idea what he's saying. "What do you mean _go along with_? You're the one who refused to even mention it. And who says that kiss didn't mean anything?"

" _You_ did," he says pointedly, as if he can't imagine why she'd even be asking him that. "The first time we'd seen each other after the night we met. You'd made it very clear that your one-night stands were just that, and it didn't seem like your opinion on that matter had changed in the year that's passed since. I had no interest in bringing it up only for you to tell me what I already knew."

She's so dumbfounded by the absurdity in his words, it takes her a moment to find her tongue again. " _One-night stands_? You thought…" She can't bring herself to complete that sentence, her mind reeling, and it appears as though he's on the verge of uncertainty, as well, when he says, slowly:

"You may have kissed me under the pretense of repeating our previous engagement, but just because I don't regret the night we'd shared before doesn't mean that's the kind of relationship I want with you." The breath he exhales is heavy with the weight of that admission, with how much it must have taken out of him, and the memory of their conversation immediately preceding their kiss flits through her head – his _I don't regret it_ ; her solitary answer: _Good_. A small, repentant smile pulls at the edges of his lips. "I'm sorry, love. I know this isn't something you want to hear, but it's the truth."

"Killian…" she begins, though it must be on impulse more than anything else because she hasn't a clue what she's about to say.

"I can't just keep being your one-time thing, Emma," he says, speaking faster now, before she has the chance to figure it out. "I… I have feelings for you. And it's so unbelievably hard to keep pretending like I don't – I almost did, I almost convinced myself I could, but then you had to go and remind me of every single bloody reason I can't stop thinking about our night together, and I can't _do_ that." He breaks off, closing his eyes briefly, before he continues with what sounds a lot like remorse. "I can't just be that person in the office you sleep with; I can't just kiss you one day and act like it's nothing the next. I'm sorry," he says again, and it comes out nearly breathless. "I wish – I really do wish –"

But she never does find out what he wishes he could do or be or say. And she doesn't quite care, either – not when she's just grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and hauled him down to meet her lips halfway.

It's fierce, angry – all of her frustration poured into how roughly she kisses him, and as if on instinct, his lips curve to fit against hers even as she feels him stiffen with surprise. The noise he makes is something like a groan, quiet and warm, and she nearly melts into it, into the way his mouth begins to move like he still hasn't completely registered what's happening, but there's something she has to do first.

She pulls away but doesn't step back from where she's pressed up against him, even as she feels him reach blindly for her waist to hold her in place. With her other hand still clenched around his collar, she intends to punch him in the chest, though all that happens is that her fist lands loosely on his lapel.

"You're an _idiot_." Her voice breaks, but she can't bring herself to feel embarrassed at this point. His eyes flutter open, bewildered, and she takes him in, in all of his flustered glory.

"Emma, what—?" he starts, low and hoarse. "Bloody hell—"

"Did _that_ kiss feel real enough for you? You _asshole_ ," she says, her throat tight with fervor. "How the _hell_ could you have thought— _God_ , all this time—"

"Swan, what on earth are you trying to—?"

"What I want," she says forcefully, "is to be with you. And _not_ as a one-time thing."

For the space of two seconds, he merely stares at her, and then his brow furrows. "You—what?" A hint of his tongue darts out to wet his lips, as though needing to taste the remnants of their kiss to even begin to believe her words.

"Whatever we had before – that's not the kind of relationship I want with you either." Her hand begins digging into his shirt again, needing to find better purchase for how it feels to tell him this outright. Warm and real beneath her touch, his solidness grounds her to the moment in a way that nothing else does.

"Why didn't you just tell me?"

"Why didn't _you_ tell _me_? I came in that morning to a transfer request, and then you were all business as usual. What the hell was I supposed to think?"

"I—" He swallows, his face crumpling. "Swan, that transfer request – I truly didn't mean to keep it a secret. I wrote it up when you'd just left my office that night, when I couldn't think of anything but how little I could bear being so near you knowing all the while–" His exhale brushes against her skin like a whisper before he continues, speaking more quickly now: "It's not an excuse; I knew it was a lapse in judgment as soon as I submitted it, and I'd planned to rescind it as soon as I could. You have to know that, Swan. Being with you was more important than whatever capacity that might have manifested itself in."

Despite the fact that she's still clinging to his collar, that his hands are gripping her waist tighter with the effort of wringing the words from his heart, they still make her lightheaded and in desperate need of a reality check. "So why…?"

He falters, and she's suddenly unsure of whether she wants to hear his answer after all, her heart aching as much as it already is. "That night, when I saw Tink pass by my office on her way out, I thought that meant we could… we could finally talk. So I waited for you to come back," he says, and a terrible dismay seeps through her with the realization of his words. "But you didn't. And I thought you might bring it up the next morning – I didn't want to, in case I was right and you'd have been uncomfortable having that conversation – but… you acted like it hadn't affected you at all." He pauses, pressing his lips together. "I thought then, maybe, that transferring would be best. For the both of us."

That awful time – she remembers every detail with perfect clarity. More than anything, she remembers how she'd been fully prepared to confront him with all of her hurt and confusion, only for her resolve to crumble the moment he opened his mouth.

"I let Tink go early that night," she says, her voice quiet. "I didn't finish with Neverland until much later, so I figured I'd just talk to you about it in the morning. But then I found out about that transfer request, and I…" She blinks down to her hands before she meets his gaze again, ashamed. "I didn't want to hear you say it."

There's a short silence, and he nudges her gently: "Say what?"

The breath she inhales seems to quiver in her lungs. "I thought I knew what you were going to tell me – that it wasn't real. That it would have been better not working together anymore after what happened. I didn't want to hear you–" She breaks off, struggling to find her courage again. "I didn't want to hear you say you didn't feel the way I did."

His gaze softens to the point that she wonders how she could have ever seen anything but tenderness there. Even as his eyebrows pinch together, his lips curl into the tiniest of rueful smiles as he says, "I suppose we had the same idea, love."

 _The same idea_. She swallows. "So all of that, you avoiding me this entire time…"

"I imagined you really did consider it a mistake," he says. "But I suppose all that did was make you believe the same of me."

"Of _course_ that's what I believed," she retorts, even as her vision blurs. "What else could I have thought?"

Though it's not the least bit funny, she feels more than hears his feeble snort of a chuckle. "Perhaps if we'd just been a tad more creative…"

" _Don't_ ," she says weakly, but the stiff corners of her mouth pull apart all the same. He seems to relent, albeit looking a little too pleased about prying a reaction out of her, despite everything, and she has to bite her lip before she can speak again. "You really thought I didn't care about you?"

He tilts his head. "Given our history, can you blame me for not wanting to assume anything of your affections?"

"That was different."

"And yet you came to the same conclusion about my own feelings for you."

The words to respond to that fail on her tongue. She blinks at him for a moment, then huffs out a breath. "I can't believe this," she says. "How it that, after everything that's happened, I'm not even allowed to be angry at you?"

Though the fabric of her shirt, his thumb rubs her waist in what she's sure is meant to be a reassuring motion. "By all means, love," he murmurs, "be angry."

"I... I can't." She closes her eyes, but even then it's hard to wrap her head around the ridiculousness of it all. He'd been so afraid to have his heart broken, he had no idea he was doing the same thing to her, all the while she'd been paralyzed by that identical fear. The question she knows she'll be asking herself for as long as she can think it is: how the hell could they have danced around each other with the same exact thought but fail so miserably to meet halfway?

Right now, though, all she can do is let her head fall forward onto his shoulder, burying her face in his suit jacket.

"I don't want to be," she whispers. "Angry at you, I mean."

She feels him shift to accommodate her into the crook of his neck, his cheek pressing against her hair as he curls his hands around to rest at the small of her back, and he lets out a sigh, long and slow, that she can feel shuddering into her very bones. To be fair, she doesn't think she could fit more perfectly in his arms than she does in this moment – incredulous beyond belief, spent from the weariness of the last few weeks, but more comfortable than she ever could have imagined simply being held could feel.

"Would you believe me," he mumbles, the vibrations trembling across her skin, "if I apologized for everything anyway?"

The idea that he's so unsure of her trust in him that forgiveness doesn't even seem to be on the table has her fielding a thick swallow. "I don't think I ever doubted that you were telling me the truth," she admits, her voice muffled against his shoulder. "No matter how bad that HR file looked, somewhere deep down, I knew I had to believe you."

He's silent as she assumes he takes this in. Then, he hedges, carefully, "What about everything else?"

"What do you mean?"

"Everything I've told you here, just now." When she leans back to gauge his expression, he seems perfectly serious, but – against her will, her stomach lurches with a familiar gait – she knows that look in his eye. "About caring for you? And about how I haven't been able stop imagining what it might be like to kiss you again – to properly kiss you again – since you walked away that night?"

Even pursing her lips seems useless at keeping her tremulous smile in check. "You never told me that last part."

"I just did."

She really has missed him.

(Maybe she's in love with him after all.)

She blinks up at him, struggling to maintain her ability to speak. "I think," she says quietly, "it's long past due for you to find out."

And she watches the most brilliant smile unfold across his face, spreading like a warm glow into every corner of his expression – _adoration_ , she thinks, _I've seen that before_ – for the span of three heartbeats she can feel, strong and heavy and _hers_ , deep in his chest.

On the fourth, she stretches up on her toes, angling her head up to catch his lips with hers as he bends to kiss her once more.

It's soft, searching – and it also has to be better than anything he could have imagined, because nothing has felt more right than closing her eyes and giving herself into the sensation of being with him again. Sliding her hands up his collar to wrap her arms around his neck, she tugs him down to settle flush against her, deepening the kiss before she can help it, and she can feel his sigh down her spine the moment every line of her body is pressed up against his. He tastes her as though he's a man starved, curls his tongue around hers in a way that nearly makes her legs give out if not for how he clutches her tighter in his arms, as though he's intent on never letting her leave now that she's right where she needs to be.

She really, _really_ isn't going anywhere this time.

Except for, maybe, backwards, her behind hitting the edge of her desk before she even knows they've been moving. She isn't sure which of them is the culprit, but she does know that the impact jolts a tiny, surprised noise out of her mouth, one that seems to spark a new hunger in the way his lips chase hers to reclaim them again. Pinned between his hips and the wood, she can feel the beginnings of exactly what she's doing to him, and it sends a shot of liquid heat down to where her sensible work skirt doesn't seem to be quite so sensible after all, not when she's suddenly tempted by the desire to hike the hem up her thigh and hook her leg around his, to draw another delicious sound out from the back of his throat. Instead, she settles for nipping gently at his bottom lip – and that produces the desired effect quite nicely.

He tugs his mouth from hers with a low groan, only to drag it in a wet trail up the side of her jaw. Her eyes roll back as she lets her head fall back, lets him taste her pulse point and what he's doing to her in turn: goosebumps and heated skin and her full, fluttering heart. The warmth of his breath trickles down her neck, under her collar, drawing her breasts tight against the hard plane of his chest, and with every contented hum that leaves her lips – her good judgment may as well have just taken a dive out of the high-rise window of her new office, for all she can think about much else at the moment – she's growing more and more certain that the layers of clothes shifting between them are starting to pose more of a nuisance than anything else.

"Killian," she whispers. He murmurs his agreement against her skin, and then all coherent thought flies from her mind when his teeth scrape the place her shoulder meets the column of her throat. Her fingers curl around where they've wound into the hair at the back of his head, holding him in place as he sooths the spot with his tongue, though there's nothing to be done about the rough scratch of his beard or how it makes her writhe in his grip.

"This is better," he admits finally, and she has trouble understanding what he's referring to until he lifts his head to kiss her again. " _So_ much better than I thought." The last part is mumbled against her lips.

"Killian, I need—" She means to ask him to shrug out of his jacket, which is beginning to feel stiff and wholly unnecessary, but he gets to her first: his hand slips between them, though he keeps his mouth pressed firmly to hers, to catch a finger onto the top button of her shirt. With agonizing slowness, he tugs it open, skimming a feather-light trail along her chest on his way down.

It's only after he reaches the second button that he finally breaks the kiss.

"Bloody hell, Swan," he says, his voice thick, his breathing labored in a way that is nothing short of _ridiculously hot_. "Do you always wear such charming undergarments to work?"

She struggles to swallow as he slides his thumb along the lace ridge at her breast, curving his hand under her shirt and across the material, as if in reverence. "Not sure if you can speak for the other half quite yet."

"Yet?" His eyes tear from their appreciation of her lingerie to meet her gaze, dark and wanting and dangerous. As if in response to her words, she feels his free hand slide down her hip, drawing the fabric of her skirt up into his palm.

"That can't seriously be a question," she mutters, just as he smirks and his mouth covers hers again.

The hand trapped between them smooths out over her ribcage to splay across her back in favor of returning the distance between them to zero, and though she misses his exploration of what she's wearing underneath her clothes, there's something erotic about the way her bare skin rubs against the cotton of his shirt where her chest lays exposed and heaving. Besides, infinitely more interesting is how his opposite hand moves lower down her leg until he's catching it at the knee and pulling it up his thigh, bunching her skirt at her waist. She'd be worried about her ability to balance on one leg if not for how firmly he's got her secured against the desk, though that in itself causes a slew of other problems – namely how she can feel him hard between her legs, right where she's hot and aching and wanting, and _fuck_ , does she want him.

She rolls her hips, revels in the pure desire that ripples through her body at the sensation. More than that, she revels in how it draws a sharp breath from his lungs, in how his lips stop moving in favor of gritting out a quiet curse.

She does it again. The way his own hips jerk in response have her positive he's about to dip her over the edge of the desk.

"We should probably—" he chokes out, his forehead pressed to hers. "This is probably not—"

Her mind is so foggy, wrapped up in the feel and the taste and the smell of him, that it takes her longer than she'd like to admit to understand what he's trying to say. It also takes her longer than she's proud of to process exactly what an innocent passerby might see the instant they pass her office – which is something she has _no_ interest in repeating tonight.

"Do you still have those satin sheets?"

Clouded with raw lust as they are, his eyes still manage to stare at her as if she's the physical embodiment of all his prayers answered. She licks her lips. Should she still remember that? Does she really care?

"Swan, my pillows carried your scent for at least a week after you left," he says. The corners of his mouth curl with devilish promise. "I couldn't get rid of those sheets if I tried."

* * *

Sure enough, her decision to go with her sense in thread count was a massive testament to excellent foresight: his bed feels even more wonderful under her bare shoulders than she even remembers.

Granted, the last time she'd assumed this position was quite a while ago, but the memories are coming back to her in perfect clarity. The slow-ass elevator in his apartment building. The trouble he'd had inserting his key into the lock of his door (maybe this time she had neglected to redo a few of her buttons before leaving her office, but his eager clumsiness had definitely been there before). Most of everything else is a blur – both times, she'd caught a glimpse of spartan furniture accompanied by more of the model ships that usually grace his office, but nothing was really conclusive when he'd distracted her by immediately kissing her senseless against the wall next to the door – except for, naturally, the ceiling of his bedroom, which is what finds itself in her line of sight now.

So what if they're a little impatient? She's pretty sure it's well-deserved.

On his knees at the foot of the bed, he slides her skirt off of her ankles, his gaze roaming each new inch of bare skin with nothing short of awe. Her blouse had been lost at the door, victim to his desire to resume his earlier work, which makes her now significantly underdressed in comparison to all of the clothes he still wears: she can only be glad he'd skipped the waistcoat today, because his suit jacket was all she could slip from his shoulders in the backwards scramble across his apartment.

Well, she notes, examining him up on her elbows, his hair and tie had suffered a respectable amount of damage, so maybe she shouldn't be complaining.

"Emma," he whispers, sounding as though he isn't complaining either. Once he deposits her skirt on the duvet, he makes his way up the bed to meet her, though since he only needs one hand to prop himself up, he takes the opportunity to glide his other palm up her leg along the way, raising gooseflesh with his touch. His fingers end up pulling at the matching black lace on her hip as he leans over her, his smile positively _sinful_. "Am I truly to believe you wear this kind of thing every day in the office?"

Still propped up on her forearms, she's a little closer to his face than she'd really like to be – at least, when she's trying to muster an appropriate response to that. For other purposes, though…

"Why?" She bites her lip in a way that has his eyes darting to her mouth in an instant. "I wasn't aware that the dress code regulated undergarments."

"That may need to change," he says. The lower his gaze dips, the hotter her skin under his inspection grows, despite how cool the air and his sheets feel otherwise. "It should be a crime to hide such lovely clothes under everyday business attire."

He sinks his face into the crook of her neck, his mouth brushing against a spot that that has her eyes fluttering shut. Between the light scratch of his scruff and the cold silk of his tie pooling on her bare stomach, she's starting to get overwhelmed with sensation, and they haven't even properly started yet. "Going to prosecute me for that, are you?"

"Pity we don't work in criminal law," he breathes, "but I'm sure I could come up with a number of other ways we could make your convict fantasies a little more fun."

 _Fuck_. "Why don't you start by kissing me, mister big-shot lawyer?"

She feels him grin against her skin, and then his lips are moving over hers again, pushing her back gently into the pillows as she gathers his hair back into the spaces between her fingers. Her entire body humming with anticipation, she doesn't know how much more of this teasing she can take – he's barely touched her, even though she's very nearly naked from where his forearm lines her head to where his opposite thumb rubs circles into her hip between the cage of his legs. So while she appreciates that the image they make right now is probably something out of an office fetish catalog – her black lace undergarments match perfectly with his tie – she's in desperate need of a little leveling of the playing field.

Sliding her hands back down his neck, she undoes his tie in record time, fumbles with his buttons as best she can when his tongue his in her mouth and making her feel dizzy in a way making out really, really shouldn't. She uses her nails when she finally runs her fingers down his chest, his shirt discarded at last, earning her a delicate shudder and a very prematurely ended kiss.

His blue eyes are darker than she's ever seen them when he pulls away, though she doesn't think that has anything to do with the night that floods the room.

"And you complained about a couple of measly love bites," he mutters. "Those nails of yours will be the death of me."

"Really?" Her fingertips catch the coarse hair dusting his chest, slip lower until she reaches the hard plane of his stomach. "I don't remember you having any objections last time." The way he sucks in a breath would not be lost on her even if she couldn't hear it, as she skims the dark path from his navel down to where she knows it disappears into his trousers. She's about to tug the end of his belt free, too, but she barely lays a hand on it before he's pulling away from her grasp, shaking his head.

"Not yet, love."

It's the hint of amusement in his voice that prompts her glare. "Seriously?"

He chuckles, though it still sounds dirty to her. "I'll make the wait worth your while; I promise."

"What are you— _oh_ ," she sighs, her eyes closing involuntarily at the feeling of his hand skimming between her thighs, barely grazing her with the lightest brush. Her legs fall open as he just misses the spot that is absolutely aching for pressure, but then he's gone just as quickly, sitting up on to hook his fingers around her waistband instead.

She forces herself to watch as he slowly slides her underwear down and off of her legs, if only to catch how tenderly he stares at her, and maybe also to briefly admire the delicious picture he makes – all sex hair and broad shoulders and lean, hard muscle everywhere she looks. Neither of them is completely bare quite yet, though there's something to be said about how little his slacks are able to hide his prominent erection, which is why she finds it odd she's this wound up with barely a touch where she's now exposed.

"You're trembling," he murmurs. A warm hand curves from her hip to her knee, tugs her legs open to bare her heat fully to the coolness of the room – which, somehow, pales in comparison to the electric feel of his gaze between her legs, to the mere sight of him perched there. His thumb rubs what she thinks are meant to be soothing circles into her waist, but as it dips lower and lower, but all it does is cause her thighs to twitch open wider as she plants her feet on the soft duvet on either side of him

"You were… pretty good at this last time, if I remember correctly," she admits. Her next inhale comes a little sharper when his finger drags up her folds slowly, catching the wetness to slowly swirl around where she's swollen and sensitive, and it's perhaps testimony to the veracity in his next words that he doesn't take the chance she gives him to preen.

"I was hoping to something a little new." She swallows at the sight of him dipping his head down to press a gentle kiss just below her navel. "I've… I've been thinking about this."

"Have you?" she asks breathlessly, and he barely takes the time to hum a reply before his mouth replaces his hand, and she loses all capacity of coherent speech.

He tastes her, drinks her up like he knows nothing but her quivering heat, wet and wanting and burning up with each stroke and glide of his tongue through her folds. It really is cleverer when put to good use, as are his lips and – _god_ , his teeth, nipping and soothing and drawing into her flesh with a skill she can't believe they hadn't thought to test out before. She writhes against his mouth, pushing her hips against him in silent, desperate need, and her hands, which had once been fisted in his sheets, move to the tangle of hair that ducks and shifts and looks so fucking _good_ between her legs, she nearly gives in from the sight of it alone.

"Killian." It takes just the whisper of his name, apparently, for him to glance up, his eyes locking with hers in an instant.

"So lovely," he says in a quiet voice, the tickle of his breath, the smooth slide of his hands, far too erotic against her skin. Though he returns his mouth to its task, he never looks away, simply pushes her higher and higher and doesn't stop, even as she begins to gasp out her pleasure, blinking furiously with every pant that escapes her lips. The moment she falls apart against him is so painfully desperate that she's afraid her hands might be clenching too tightly in his hair, but then every nerve ending in her body is coming alight with a white-hot fire, tongues of flame licking up her spine and down to her shuddering legs, and she can't think of anything but the bliss that erupts and blooms from the space between her thighs.

It takes her a second to realize that she's squeezed her eyes shut, and although she's in no way fully come back to her senses, she manages to pry them open just enough to see him rising back up on his haunches, licking his lips and wiping his scruff with the back of his hand. _God_ , his face his _wet_. She's sure hers is pink in the most embarrassing way.

"Well, love?" A dark eyebrow arches up his forehead. "Personally, I'd wager that was worth it." He grins even as she shoves him with her foot weakly, still feeling as though every muscle in her body is has liquefied into mush.

"Shut up and kiss me," she breathes.

All of her appreciation goes into that kiss, slow and deep and ridiculously content. She tastes herself on his tongue, brings herself down on it even as his lips work to driver her back up. Wrapping her arms full around his neck, she pulls him down to cover her body with his, relishing in the scrape of his hair against her breasts, clothed as they are. His hips fit neatly between her legs, and she _feels_ him, thick and hard where that dull ache simmers just below the surface; the first time he jerks against her, she thinks he's doing it on purpose, but the second time his breath hitches, and she thinks he may not be as cocky and controlled in this as she'd figured.

"Time for the rest of these damned clothes to come off, I think," she murmurs, and he doesn't seem to want to protest again. She pushes him up to a sitting position so she can reach under her and unhook her bra, watching his hands go straight to his belt buckle even as his own gaze wanders.

"Swan." Her nipples are drawn tight with arousal and with the stark coolness of the air, but apparently she doesn't have to worry about that for long: she's hardly discarded her last offending article of clothing before he's breathing out another shaky sigh, bending down to capture her lips with his. His task entirely forgotten, his palms slide up her trembling belly until they cup the weight of her breasts in their warm grasp. She arches up to meet him even as she inwardly groans. He hadn't even gotten even as far as his zipper, the ridiculous man.

Reaching between them, she fumbles with the last fastenings of his trousers, blindly trying to push them and his boxers down his hips in one go, shoving her hand between his legs even before they're halfway down his thighs. His groan is an absolutely dirty guttural sound as she fills her palm with the silken thrust of his erection, but she barely has the chance to stroke him gently before he's jerking away with a low string of curses.

The look on his face as he hovers over her is nothing short of _completely fucking wrecked_.

"I hope," she says, vaguely pleased, even as her body hums with so much anticipation she probably wouldn't be laughing if she were in his position, "you still have protection here somewhere, even if you haven't needed it for your barren love life."

He doesn't even fight that, maybe too wound up to care. "You should know by now, darling: I'm nothing if not prepared."

He crawls over to reach the nightstand, but when he returns with a foil packet between his fingers, she doesn't let him stay there for long. One arm around his shoulders, one leg around his waist, she flips them so that he's on his back now, looking unspeakably filthy with the pillows stacked behind his head and his cock hard against his stomach, trapped by the remainder of his clothes. At least this time, he helps her remove it all.

When she finally situates herself back over his legs, she savors his expression when she plucks the condom from his grasp.

"Mm," he hums, a hint of his tongue darting along his teeth as he watches her hover over him, tearing the wrapper open. "This _is_ new."

"New good, or new bad?" His hips nearly lift right off the bed when she reaches down to roll it on, when she just happens to linger there, encircling the soft weight of him with her hand once again.

" _Definitely_ good," is his strangled reply.

Straddling his hips, she braces both of her hands down against his chest, then lowers herself down, down, until she feels his cock slide against her folds without actually sliding home. Her knees are trembling so badly with the ache of her desire, but she needs this – _needs_ to grind against him, if only to build the pressure as high as it will possibly go before they both give in. The tip of him rubs her clit, throbbing beneath her with every beat of his heart under her palms, with every pant that leaves her lips, and it's only when his shaky hands grip her waist that she knows it's time.

"Emma, love," he whispers. " _Please_."

One hand between them, she guides his length between her legs, and the feeling when he finally slips inside has a breathless gasp tearing from her throat matches his own quiet groan. He fills her so tightly, so thick and hot that her patience nearly snaps on the slow, smooth glide down – but when he bottoms out and she's seated fully atop him, her pulse fluttering madly at the apex of her thighs where they meet, she thinks that may have been the best idea of her life. For the space of a few seconds, she can only rest there as she tries to catch her breath. Then, experimentally, she rolls her hips, drawing out the rough drag of his cock inside her.

 _So fucking good_. None of her memories could have captured even a fraction of the sensation to its truest extent, and she wonders if he's dwelling in the past as well when his eyes, focused between her legs, begin to glaze over darkly. On one hand, she can't really blame him. On the other, she knows exactly what to do to bring them both back to the here and now.

She begins to move, not too slow, not too fast, letting each deep thrust settle within the vice of her body, clenched and taut around him, before she pulls back up again. The way she rocks in his lap uses every muscle she owns, she thinks, or it could just be that every fiber of her being is stretched tight with a pleasure that burns higher and higher, the blaze devouring her up from where they're joined in a slick dance of heated flesh. Beneath her hands, he writhes and pushes up against her, trying to meet her thrust for thrust such that his chest heaves from the exertion of it; when her gaze slides higher, the expression on his face nearly undoes her right then and there.

His pupils are dilated with lust, but she doesn't think that's why his blue eyes seem so ardent and flush and _full_ right now, refusing to budge from her face even though she's sure she's giving him quite the show. He licks his lips, and then he's pushing himself up on his elbows, as though trying to reach her – but she doesn't let him get very far. Instead, she shoves him back down onto the bed and ducks her head, still moving over him again and again, to cup his face in her hands and kiss him so thoroughly she nearly melts into him. The curtain of her hair falls over her shoulders in waves, which he tucks to one side, giving them both room to breathe in quick pants against damp skin.

"Killian, _oh_ , god." It's getting harder and harder to increase her pace when her mind is faltering in every sense but for how he feels inside her, buried within her quivering tight heat so perfectly that she begins to tremble with her release. Once, twice her hips stutter, and then she's clenching her legs around him, crying out as feverish pleasure erupts from her core and fills every crevice of her body with an exquisite glow. She feels rather than hears him groan in response; the next time their hips come together, though she isn't sure if she's still moving or if he's pulling her onto him in a last desperate effort, he shudders violently beneath her, gasping and pulsing and rippling in the embrace of pure bliss.

His face when he comes is something she remembers, too.

When they finally still, she collapses onto him, sweat-slicked and breathless and utterly unable to move within the circle of his arms. His skin is hot against her cheek, rising and falling with the demands of his racing heart, the one beneath her palm that still beats for her – after all this time. Although she's exhausted beyond belief, lulled into comfort by the lingering haze of her release, she just manages to lift her head to gauge his expression.

Sure enough, he's watching her, too, with a fondness that swells tight in her throat. A hint of a smile pulls at the edges of his red mouth.

"That…" he says quietly. "That was…"

" _Not_ a one-time thing." It isn't as though she thinks he needs the reminder; rather, she wants to say it aloud, make this time markedly different from the last time they were in this position just to make it real.

This is _real_ , what they have.

It'd just taken them a second pass to make it right.

His fingers brush the skin of her bare back, dipping into the curve of her spine, languid and slow.

"I really am sorry." He seems to make sure that she's looking him right in the eye when he adds, "For everything."

"It wasn't just you," she says with a small shake of her head, even though she has a feeling that her hair situation is pretty bad as it is. "You're not the only one who should be apologizing."

There's a long pause as the truth of her words sinks in. And then:

"If this is your way of making it up to me, maybe we should get into fights more often." She suspects the dirty glare she shoots him is too soft around the edges to be completely worrisome, which is why he laughs. "Joking, I'm only joking."

"I don't think apology sex is the kind you should be aiming for," she tells him mildly.

"Are you saying I should be looking forward to something even better than this?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

She grins. "I guess you'll have to wait to find out, won't you?"

"Hmm." His hand slides up from the small of her back, shifting to cup her jaw. His fingers tangle in her hair but for his thumb, which brushes against her bottom lip gently, though she can feel the soreness just from that alone. "So I suppose, based on all of that, it stands to reason that I won't be waking up to an empty bed this time?"

She leans into his touch. "I'd say that's a pretty sure thing."

To be completely honest, she doesn't think she could leave his bed if she tried. Every muscle in her body protests when she finally rolls off of him, tucks herself in as he excuses himself to the bathroom, and even simply lying in wait for him to return seems like a difficult task when the day has been so ridiculously eventful – she doesn't even want to _look_ at his bedside clock, doesn't even think she has the energy to lift her head, actually, from the moment it hits her pillow. Eventually, he joins her under the covers, on the side of the bed she's starting to think of as _his_ , sliding in between the sheets and drawing her into his arms as if they'd done it a million times before.

She tucks her head under his chin, curling her hands between them with a deep sigh. The soft rhythm of his breathing begins to lull her, steadily, into a mindless, contented daze – but then a thought occurs to her just as she's beginning to properly settle into the embrace of unconsciousness.

"Oh, god," she mutters, only distantly aware of how slurred she probably sounds. "What time were you planning to get into the office tomorrow morning?"

The reason for that question, she thinks, is very important – it has to do with the fact that her phone is in her purse, which is somewhere in the apartment foyer, but aside from a faint memory of clattering into Storybrooke's lobby totally out-of-breath and sweaty, the rationale escapes her altogether.

He mumbles something into her hair that she can't quite distinguish, but it sounds so reassuring that she nods despite not getting a real answer from him at all.

The last thing she remembers is the press of his lips to the side of her head, and then she slips quietly into a warm, peaceful sleep wrapped up in the safety of his arms.

* * *

Killian ends up calling in sick the next day.

Emma watches blearily over his shoulder as he taps out a quick email to Smee on his phone ( _Seriously? You're just going to leave him alone in there?_ Killian snorts: _It's only a day; what's the worst that could happen?_ ) and then turns over to face her, nose inches from hers.

"It appears as though my schedule for the day has suddenly cleared up," he says far too cheerfully for a 6:30am wake-up. "How does your day look?"

Despite how exhausted she is, as she's sure is the case for him as well, she has no doubt in her mind that he doesn't mean to spend the day catching up on lost sleep. But, at the sight of his soft, sleep-wracked smile, she feels like that's a problem for another time.

"Well, I don't technically stop reporting to you until I officially get that promotion tomorrow," she says with a small grin of her own. "And I guess you do still outrank me in the partner hierarchy. So maybe," she shifts forward, brushing her lips to his gently, "I can convince you to give me the day off, too."


	7. Chapter 7

Author's Note: Well, this is it - the last chapter of my Captain Swan Big Bang fic! Thank you so much to everyone who has been a part of this journey, especially Ice Cube 1 as well as captainswanandclintasha for the delightful story art, which is linked on Tumblr (and neither of you have seen this chapter yet, so... surprise-ish?)!

And of course, to you, who is reading this: THANK YOU. This fic has been an incredible learning experience, and I'm honored (ha) that you've chosen to take some time out of your day to share in it with me :)

So now, without further ado... enjoy!

* * *

 **Guilty, Your Honor**

 _Chapter 7_

As it turns out, dating a co-worker isn't as weird as Emma might have imagined.

Maybe that's just because most of the changes in their relationship – in her relationship, the one she's in with _Killian Jones_ , and she has to bite her lip to keep from smiling at that – are a product of her promotion to partner, more than anything else.

Not that she's complaining about not having to report to anyone anymore, because being her own boss again (minus the managerial supervision, of course), doing things however she wants without arguing with a certain stubborn idiot for hours on end, feels _amazing_. She's also pretty partial to the wide space of her new office, too, and she suspects she'll like it even more once the sight of the front edge of her desk stops resurfacing the memory of it digging into her ass, along with other related memories.

Things could definitely be worse.

It's still a little strange, though, not working with him, despite now residing only a few doors away. Killian's new associate, some transfer from the London branch named Will Scarlet, seems to enjoy pissing him off more than working with him, and she gets an earful about it every time she kicks out the man in question so she can have dinner with her boyfriend, whether or not that involves actually leaving the office.

"Miss me?" Emma asks one day, over two boxes of Granny's grilled cheese balancing on the corner of his desk. Based on his latest story involving some strange combination of the copy machine, Archie's dog, and a cheap cup of coffee, she doesn't need the dark look on Killian's face to know his answer.

"Is that a real question?"

"Scarlet does a much better job proofreading than I do, doesn't he?"

"You nailed it right on the head, darling," he says, smiling wryly. "Perhaps he's the one I should be romantically pursuing instead."

"I think we're a little past the pursuit stage, don't you think?"

Without fail, every time she so much as alludes to the new state of their relationship, that same subdued delight finds its way to the edges of his mouth. "I would hope so, or else I've been completely misled into allowing this level of food thievery."

She nabs another onion ring, smirking as she takes the first delicious bite.

(Some things stay exactly the same.)

To be fair, she hasn't given him much of a chance to really miss her at all, given that the time she doesn't spend working with him these days is made up for with all of the time they spend doing other… things. _More enjoyable activities_ is what he would say. She's much inclined to agree, even without considering those specific activities he's not-so-subtly referring to – raised eyebrows and salacious grin and all.

The lunch hour is her special time to spend with Mary Margaret and Ruby, but he finds ways to sneak in extra meals with her at work anyway. A snack break here, a cup of liquid sleep there (not his preferred kind, but he always delivers it to her taste regardless of his opinions on dental care), and she's fairly certain she's going to put on a few pounds from all of the excuses they make to see each other during the day. She's also sure she'll need a new cell phone plan soon, because the number of inane messages they send back and forth over the course of the mere hours in between, which consists less of real conversation and more of complaining about work, has to be approaching a ridiculous level at this point.

They save that real conversation for when they see each other face-to-face – which, unintentionally of course, happens to fall upon every evening, for the most part. She'd tried to set boundaries, she really had. But she'd been starving, and she'd known he was going to be working late, and the temptation to show up at his (figurative) doorstep bearing takeout had been too much to bear. And he'd apparently had no objection to making it an unofficial tradition, though certainly within reason, because every time they spend the evening in each other's company also happens to be a night in which they leave together, zero work completed, as well.

And, needless to say… the enjoyable activities they engage in afterwards leave absolutely nothing to be desired.

(Seriously. She's feeling aches in muscles she didn't even know she had, so it's safe to say they're being pretty fucking thorough.)

Her favorite part of it all, though – more than the doughnuts and the dinners and even, yes, the mind-blowing sex – is what that inevitably means for the mornings after. Waking up to dawn creeping in through the curtains, his slow breathing warm on her neck and his arm slung low around her waist. Turning over slowly, careful not to jostle him awake, in order to run her eyes over his relaxed face only inches from hers, still lost in the throes of unconsciousness though no less ridiculously handsome. Once, so wrapped up in that sleepy, tender affection, she'd taken the time to rub her fingers over the rough line of his jaw, just basking in how it felt to lie here with him, the sheets soft against her shoulders and the comforter tangled somewhere around their feet – a completely different world from the first time she'd awoken at his side – but then he'd clumsily caught her hand there, apparently not as asleep as she'd imagined. She'd had a lot of trouble getting out of bed after that.

On days when she doesn't make that same mistake (it happens less often than she's proud of), when she does manage to wake up before he does, she makes sure to slip out of bed and into the shower before any potential distractions can derail their morning. That usually puts her halfway through her hot chocolate by the time he saunters into the kitchen, hair wet, shirt half-unbuttoned with his tie hanging off of his shoulders, like he knows exactly what he's doing. As much as she likes burying her nose in her phone, pretending to peruse her email, she knows exactly what he's doing, too.

On this particular morning, however, it's the minty scent of her toothpaste and a kiss pressed into her hair that informs her of his arrival, a warm hand squeezing her shoulder from behind.

"Sleepy, love?" His voice is a quiet rumble in the otherwise sunny stillness of her apartment.

"What makes you say that?" It's ridiculous, this urge to lean into his touch despite how many they've shared by this point, but she still feels the loss of his presence all the same when he continues on, rounding the table on his way to the fridge.

"Nothing, really," he says. He no longer needs to search for the orange juice, which is always stocked on the top shelf, so it isn't long before he's turning to her with the carton in hand, a hint of humor glinting in his bright eyes. "You seem a little less alert than usual, is all."

If he's drawn that solely from that fact that she hadn't (covertly) ogled him on his way in… well, maybe he's onto something there. "If I am, I'm pretty sure you're the one to blame," she tells him, and a warmth flutters through her at the sound of his chuckle.

"I'll gladly take full credit for that."

She watches as he pours himself a glass, found on his first try of cabinet-rummaging, and then glances approvingly over what she'd thrown together on the stove. Scrambled eggs and toast don't exactly make up the most glamorous breakfast menu, but no matter what they're eating, just the sight of him wandering around her kitchen is usually enough to make her smile.

Right now, though, it's not quite fondness that fills her gaze as it follows him and the glass in his hand, all the while hyperaware of the mug wrapped between the two of hers.

"Maybe I should get a coffee machine."

He turns, halfway through loading his plate with the rest of skillet's contents. "What? Why? I thought you didn't drink coffee."

"But you do," she says pointedly.

"I don't mind picking it up on the way to work," he says, as if it should be the most obvious thing in the world, and she knows he really doesn't think much of it at all. That's probably why she's even less embarrassed about her response.

"Yeah, well, you shouldn't have to. You always make coffee at home when we're at your place."

He blinks at her. There's a lot she's saying without actually speaking it aloud, none of which has to do with the monetary investment she's placing in him being around to use said investment – they may have had a short but thorough conversation about _communication_ , which had been appropriate given everything that's happened, but somehow it doesn't feel like that should apply here. Sure enough, she suspects he's parsed through it all when his face slowly breaks out into a brilliant smile – the kind she absolutely adores.

Who is she kidding? She loves it.

"Honestly, Swan, I'm not sure if that would be in my best interest."

Despite the way he's looking at her, she still can't help the tiniest prick that jabs at her chest. "What? Why not?"

His smile melts into something a little softer, and then, abandoning his breakfast, he walks the two steps it takes to cross the kitchen. Before she can do more than look up, he's bending his head and capturing her mouth with his in a long, deep kiss. He fills her senses as she sighs, her hand moving to the back of his head with a familiarity that is becoming blissfully natural, and she lets herself dissolve into it – the warmth of him, the scratch of stubble around his lips and the smooth slide of his tongue against hers.

Long, long before she's done with him, he pulls away, though he lingers close enough for her grip to fasten itself more firmly into the hair at the nape of his neck, for his breath to dance across her skin like the flecks in his eyes.

"That's why," he says, his voice low. A flash of pink darts out at the corner of his mouth, and she mimics him unconsciously, savoring the remnants of his kiss.

Oh. Orange juice. Right.

She scrunches her nose as she peers up at him. "You're worried I won't kiss you anymore once you start tasting like coffee?"

"I won't take my chances," he tells her seriously, though by the way he grins, she gets the feeling he's anything but.

"You're not getting away from me that easily," she says, rolling her eyes. Loosening her hand from the back of his head, she lets it trail down his neck, over the skin of his collarbone, hooking a finger into the deep V of his unbuttoned shirt. "And, for the record, no matter what you've had to drink, I like the way you taste."

His lashes catch the light in just the right way as he blinks, and, with no small satisfaction, she watches his Adam's apple bob in his throat – but then his teeth flash in a smirk so dangerous she almost regrets toying with him at all.

Almost.

"Is that right, darling?"

"What, do you want me to prove it?" She traces the line of his buttons, down to where they hang untucked over his belt, and catches her finger into the waistline of his trousers.

There's a split second when his grin falters, and she knows the face of good judgment, courtesy of being a _responsible lawyer_ , when she sees it. He seems to have trouble focusing, his lips parted as he glances down at hers and says, throatily, "As much fun as that would be, love, I'm not sure if we have the time."

If she wanted to, she could check the stove clock behind him to confirm just how right he is, but all she does is tug him closer, her other hand already working to loosen the flap of his belt. "That sounds like a challenge," she replies, biting her lip up at him, and she can feel his answering groan all the way down to the tips of her toes, among other interesting places.

(They make it to the office with barely a minute to spare, though she doesn't find out that her shirt is buttoned up wrong until Tink points it out – nearly three hours later.)

* * *

They go on their first date the evening after Emma's first partners meeting.

(First _official_ date, as Killian insists on saying. She pretends she has no idea what he means.)

It isn't anything extravagant, mostly because they're both working down to the wire beforehand thanks to their shared day off – and, to be fair, she's just glad that's all they had to endure from playing hooky. She changes out of her work clothes in the privacy of a restroom stall; he picks her up at seven sharp from the romantic front porch of her office, dressed in a Henley-and-jeans combo that puts his suits to shame.

She's about to tell him as much, too, but he beats her to the punch.

"You look lovely, darling." From the way his eyes light up as they travel the length of her, down to her most comfortable pair of flats, she may as well be wearing a ball gown instead of a flowy pink shirt over tights.

"You don't clean up too badly yourself," she says, throwing him a grin as she slings the strap of her purse over her shoulder.

"That certainly isn't what a man expects to hear after changing out of a suit." He leans in when she joins him at the doorway, dropping his voice. "Too many layers to formalwear, I suspect?"

She bites back the urge to laugh. "Why do you think I'm not wearing anything underneath all this?"

The look he throws her makes her positive he's strongly considering abandoning their plans altogether, but for all that she'd be perfectly fine with finishing what they'd started two days ago in this very office, he seems hell-bent on regaining his composure. Though, it could also be that his thorough inspection of her form has led to a different conclusion as he meets her gaze with a smirk: "Liar."

"I guess we'll find out soon enough, won't we?"

He raises an eyebrow. "In due time, perhaps – but not bloody soon enough."

It feels – well, there really isn't another way to put it – _nice_ to leave the office with him, to set out into the Boston night together like a normal couple. It makes things seem more real, like their relationship exists outside of library banter and the peaceful privacy of his apartment, though despite how natural it feels to be with him, as it always is, it still takes a few blocks for her hand to brush against his.

Another block passes before she laces their fingers together gently, refusing to meet his eyes even as she shoots back a retort without missing a beat.

(She nearly snatches her hand back as soon as they slow in front of a very familiar-looking door, one she hasn't seen in the year since she'd last visited this particular bar within wandering distance of her apartment – if only because she might need both of them to stifle her snort.

"You can't be serious."

"I take it you're not up for a trip down memory lane?" he asks, mischief written all over his stupid smug mouth.

She shakes her head. "Aren't you hungry? I don't remember them having much by way of a menu."

He feigns confusion for a moment, but in the end he simply chuckles. "Fortunately, I took the liberty of making us a reservation elsewhere. But it's a nice thought, isn't it?"

Emma rolls her eyes, unwilling to admit that her fondness for Misthaven has grown somewhat since she no longer needs to suppress everything of which it serves as a reminder.)

(They eventually end up in a cozy restaurant by the water that quickly becomes one of her favorites in the city, and then they do find themselves taking a trip down memory lane – just at her place instead of his, for the sake of a change in scenery.)

All in all, though, their public appearances as an official couple are few and far between. Work hardly affords them the chance to go out, which is nothing new; they just spend more time together in the office than would be considered normal for two partners, even ones in the same division who used to work with one another. This, of course, means that even without a formal announcement, and despite all of their efforts at discretion, Emma can practically hear the entire firm buzzing about her love life not a week after they'd arrived at the same time (read: together) their first day back.

Of the small group of friends they'd told, Ruby had been the most likely culprit for accidentally churning the rumor mill, but she'd merely smirked and insisted that it wasn't _her_ fault that they kept making eyes at each other. Emma figures her friend would have been offended had she not already been in a constant state of self-congratulatory glee from the moment they'd first dropped the news, though she certainly tries to keep all evidence of her brand new relationship hidden after that. More than anything, it feels like trying to keep sand from slipping between her fingers.

And so it happens that her first time ever attending Storybrooke's happy hour also happens to be the first time they plan on spending any reasonable amount of time together – _together_ , in more ways than one – in the company of people they actually know. It's a calculated effort, on both of their parts, to rip the publicity bandaid off with as much tact as can be had at a work event, to end the gossip once and for all while they still have a chance at feigning modesty.

The fact that a portion of the group going is made of her friends – well, that doesn't make her worried at _all_.

"Your boyfriend's late."

Emma looks up from her phone to where Ruby stands, only too thankful that she is now capable of hearing the B word without blushing. "So is Mary Margaret."

"Mary Margaret won't even be drinking," Ruby replies, "so she doesn't count."

"Hey!" David protests, frowning over by the stone wall opposite. He doesn't have much material to argue with, though, considering she's right, and he only has himself (from seven weeks ago, if the doctor had been correct) to blame.

"Of course Mary Margaret counts," Emma reassures him, then turns to her other friend. "Who else is going to keep us in line later tonight?"

Ruby throws her an amused look. "This is a company happy hour. Just how much are you planning on drinking, girl?"

 _Just enough to make it through the night_ , Emma thinks, but David answers for her. "Give her a break, Rubes. It's not like she's ever been to one here before."

"Yeah," Emma says. "It's not like I'd know any better than to get flat out drunk in front of all the other partners."

"It's too early for you to be demoted for inappropriate behavior anyway," David agrees sagely, which prompts a snort from Ruby.

"Is that why you and Killian can walk around acting like you're about to tear each other's clothes off without ever hearing a word about it?"

Emma narrows her eyes, her mouth twitching. "Should I be grossed out that you've imagined what that might look like?"

"You should be grossed out that everyone in the office probably has, by this point."

"I haven't, until now," David says, covering his eyes with a hand. "So thanks. Can we stop talking about this now?"

"Stop talking about what?" Mary Margaret, complete with ever-buoyant smile, practically materializes beside her husband, her footsteps from the elevators unnoticed now that she's ditched the heels in favor of more pregnancy-forgiving footwear. Although Emma shakes her head, Ruby graces her with a reply, undeterred.

"The blatant fraternization problem plaguing our firm."

Mary Margaret cocks her head to the side. "Aren't you dating a company consultant?"

"I never said I wasn't part of the problem," Ruby shrugs. "But speaking of, here comes our resident fraternization expert now."

For a moment, Emma thinks she's talking about Victor, who she thought was supposed to be meeting them at The Rabbit Hole, but before she can voice her confusion, she feels the distinct warmth of a hand curving along the small of her back. The subtle scent of spice teases her nose, and it seems like her body registers whom it belongs to faster than her mind can process his breath of a voice.

"Hey."

Pressed up against him from hip to shoulder, she has to look up to catch his eye, trying too hard to keep from beaming. "Hey."

Honestly, she doesn't think much of it at the time – she doesn't think at all, in fact, as she leans forward on her toes, tilting her head to meet the way Killian dips his in what seems like an unconscious motion, and kisses him hello like they've done only too many times.

The only problem is: they've never done it with an audience before, and she wasn't quite planning on having one for this particular PDA offense anytime soon.

The kiss is brief, short and sweet, despite the way it feels like he chases her lips with his. When she finally pulls away enough to get a good look at him, the cheeky grin on his face is enough to tug one from her own mouth, though she tries her hardest to dampen it down before she turns back to face the rest of her friends – whose expressions range from maniacal triumph (Ruby) to proud joy (Mary Margaret) to mild consternation (David). Emma's pretty sure hers is starting to resemble something like defiance, but before she can dare one of them to say something, Killian is already speaking again.

"Did I hear something about me being an expert on fraternization?" His arm is still wrapped around her waist, though she doesn't think that has anything to do with him making a point.

Somehow, that works – or maybe she hasn't given her friends enough credit for keeping things delicate.

"Aren't you?" Ruby asks like it isn't actually a question. She raises two perfectly-sculpted eyebrows. "Are you really going to stand there right now and tell me you hadn't had the hots for your associate since day one?"

"Scarlet?" Emma says. "Come on, Killian, I know I told you to get along with him, but maybe this is pushing it."

Killian rolls his eyes at her, then shrugs in Ruby's direction. "Not like I could help it. I already knew how she kissed."

"What?" David says, looking vaguely constipated.

"Later," Mary Margaret tells him with a pat on his shoulder.

"Can we please leave now?" Emma interrupts flatly. Mary Margaret spares her a sympathetic look, but all she gets from Killian is a low rumble of a chuckle. She has half a mind to elbow him in the ribs.

"Yeah." David's voice is weak. "I think a few drinks would be perfect right about now."

Ruby snorts, then links her arm with his to drag him towards the revolving doors. With Mary Margaret trailing behind them, shaking her head even as she smiles, that leaves Emma to bring up the rear with her ridiculously smug asshole of a boyfriend, and she stays pressed into the warmth of his side, despite her embarrassed exasperation, even as they begin to walk.

"This is going to be a _long_ night."

He hums, low and pleasant. The hand curled around her hip shifts lower, sliding over the curve of her ass with obvious intent. "You're telling me, darling."

* * *

A brisk knock tears her out of her file cabinet with a start, but as soon as Emma spots the culprit standing in her doorway, her mouth melts into a smile.

"Can I help you?"

"I sure hope so," Killian says brightly. He holds up a manila folder in one hand, which has her drawing up short.

She twists to glance at the clock mounted on the far wall. "You want to go now? We don't have to leave for another fifteen minutes."

"Huh." He cocks his head at the time, then regards her with a contagious twinkle in his eye. "Look at that. My mistake."

"I'm sure that's what it was." The office where they're supposed to be meeting the Agrabahs is on the other side of the city, but there's no doubt in her mind a traffic buffer is far down on his list of priorities. She crosses her arms along the edge of the open drawer, marking her place with a finger. "What other reason could you possibly have for jumping the gun on this case?"

"To be perfectly honest," he says seriously, "I've heard the partner I'm to be working with is this absolutely stunning blonde. I had to be sure I made a good first impression."

She bites her lip to keep from laughing. "Careful, Jones. Someone might think you had inappropriate intentions towards a coworker."

"Something tells me the coworker in question wouldn't mind very much." His winning grin bubbles through her as he crosses the room to lean against her desk, a familiar sight that feels different all the same thanks to that folder he tucks under his arm. The folder, this case – it's _theirs_ , their first time working together (in a formal capacity, at least) since she officially leveled the playing field, and she'd be lying if she said she hasn't spent the last few months looking forward to it just a little more than he needs to know.

(Obviously, he knows.)

"That's a pretty bold thing to assume," she manages at last. "That this coworker of yours would happily be seduced by the likes of you."

"Oh?" He matches her teasing tone. "Perhaps I should make absolutely certain of that, then."

He's stilled far enough away to keep a respectable distance, but the suggestive quirk of his eyebrow tells an entirely different story, one she's too glad only she can see. The way she reads it now, she gets the feeling he's planning on enjoying this to its fullest extent – not that she can blame him in the slightest.

Even though she should really know better – glass walls and all that, plus the tiny fact that they have to be ready to leave and presentable soon – she nudges the drawer in front of her just enough to take a step forward into his space, to need to look up to meet his gaze as she feels her lips twitch into something a little more impish.

"I think that might take a little more than fifteen minutes, if you want to be completely, totally sure."

"Why, Swan," he says, dropping his voice scandalously. " _You_ wouldn't happen to be trying to seduce a coworker in the office, would you?"

She leans in, reaches up to finger the silk of his tie, and watches his blue eyes darken with delight. "Guilty, your honor," she murmurs, reveling in the downright obscenity in the curl of his mouth. "Now, the question is: what are you going to do about it?"


End file.
